Mamata Banerjee at a rally in Bengal on Wednesday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

March 20: The Trinamul Congress today said it would “stand by the central government on matters of external affairs”, the articulation coming a day after the DMK dumped the UPA over Lanka and Mamata Banerjee picked up another sign of anti-incumbency.

“From the beginning, on matters of external affairs, our policy has been to stand by the central govt,” the All India Trinamul Congress tweeted.

The party added that it was “deeply concerned about the sentiments expressed by our Tamil brothers and sisters. We share their sentiments”.

Soon after, Trinamul MP Derek O’Brien sought to clear the air through a tweet. “One example of an Indian political party using Twitter to share news about party policy. We have explained on Twitter about our stand. Whichever be the party ruling at the Centre, Congress or BJP, on issues related to external affairs we will support,” O’Brien said in his tweet.

The MP’s tweet appeared aimed at quelling suggestions that Trinamul has been softening its stand on the Congress and has spied an opportunity to improve ties after the DMK pulled out yesterday.

Soon, Mamata herself took to Facebook. “Our party supports the cause of the Tamil brothers and sisters. We are deeply concerned about the atrocities meted out to a section of Tamil population in a foreign country.

“Local sentiments and their causes sometimes become very critical. We are supporting their cause. At the same time, our party follows a policy that we should not interfere into issues involving external relations with foreign countries. We leave it for the central government to decide on such issues. However, the concerns of the state and the sentiments of the people must be kept in view by the Centre, before taking any decision pertaining to foreign country.”

Ever since the bypoll results in Bengal, which showed how the Trinamul will be the biggest loser if the anti-Left vote is split, Mamata has been holding her fire on the Centre, which otherwise had been an all-season whipping boy. However, living up to her style of sending mixed signals, Mamata had also snubbed the Congress by staying from an event last week in Malda where the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi were present.

Alagiri delays resignation

Union minister of chemicals and fertilisers M.K. Alagiri, son of DMK chief Karunanidhi and the lone cabinet minister from the party, delayed handing over his resignation to the Prime Minister allegedly because he was upset about not being consulted about the decision to pull out of the government and the UPA.

The DMK had one cabinet minister and four ministers of state in the UPA cabinet. The three junior ministers — S. Jagathrakshakan, Gandhiselvan and Palanimanickam — submitted their resignations this morning. Alagiri did not accompany them.

According to sources, a petulant Alagiri ticked off DMK parliamentary party leader T.R. Baalu for not taking him along to meet the President while handing over the party’s letter withdrawing support to the UPA government on Tuesday night.

A sheepish Baalu had apologised saying he was suddenly instructed by Karunanidhi to hand over the letter on Tuesday night itself.