Mamata Banerjee

Calcutta, Sept. 19: A senior Congress member today said from Delhi that the party would not do anything to harm its alliance with the Trinamul Congress and that the Siliguri mayor issue was “trivial”.

“To keep the alliance intact and take it forward to the 2011 Assembly polls is our primary concern. So we will not do anything to jeopardise it. We consider the choice of the SMC mayor a trivial issue,” he said.

The statement came on a day Trinamul’s mayoral candidate Gautam Deb met Mamata Banerjee in Calcutta and claimed that a section of Congress councillors would back him if he was projected as the mayor.

“We shall discuss among ourselves within a day or two in the presence of Parthada (Chatterjee) who should be the next mayor by consensus” he said.

Jalpaiguri Congress MLA D.P. Rai also said he did not back his party’s claim to the mayor’s post. “Let us first begin talks at the local level in Siliguri to decide who should be the mayor,” he said.

Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee sounded upset at a meeting of party leaders in Calcutta today, the reason being Congress MP Deepa Das Munshi’s demand that the national party should get the mayor’s chair.

“I don’t understand why state Congress leaders are so keen on their demand for the mayor’s post when the matter has to be settled at the lower level in Siliguri. This is upsetting,” Trinamul MLA Partha Chatterjee said in the afternoon.

Chatterjee will leave for Siliguri tomorrow to try and resolve the problem.

The Congress won 15 seats in the Siliguri civic elections and Trinamul 14, but Mamata’s party has the support of an Independent.