The parting of ways between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is final, but the Congress is not short of friends and is open to making new ones. This was the political message on a day when a semi-successful ‘Bharat Bandh’ saw some parts of the country, most notably West Bengal, down shutters in protest against the rise in diesel prices and opening of multi-brand retail to foreign investment.
Congress ministers in the West Bengal government will be asked to resign tomorrow in tandem with TMC chief Mamata Banerjee’s letter to the President, saying her party is pulling out from the government. The UPA will scout, among others, for a new railway minister. Just to rile Banerjee, it could be a Congress candidate from West Bengal.
The government exuded confidence today, buoyed by the BJP’s reiteration that the party had no intention of asking the government to prove its parliamentary majority.
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“We had enough friends yesterday, we have enough friends today. So, I don’t think why you should doubt our stability,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters here.
Asked whether the government would look for new allies, he said, “If we can acquire new friends, why would we not?”
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said the government was stable as it had the support of over 300 MPs in the 545-member Lok Sabha.
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“We have support of over 300 members of Parliament who do realise that these are difficult times and know that hard decisions need to be taken,” she said, rejecting the perception that the government had been reduced to a minority.
Soni said a number of leaders had made it clear early elections were not in the national interest.
The government got a further boost when Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said it was supporting the UPA and would decide when to pull out, later.
The party was to have decided what its strategy was going to be today but put off the deliberations until bitter rival Mayawati’s announcement of her position on October 9.
The agenda before the Cabinet tomorrow is bristling with economic decisions. After tomorrow, a Cabinet reshuffle will become inevitable and consultations have already begun on who will be drafted and who will be asked to move to the party.
The bandh on Thursday was moderately successful, but no clashes or violence were reported. In most states, shops opened late and stayed open. In UP, SP workers locked the entrance of Bharti-Walmart’s store on Sultanpur Road. The women’s wing of the party was also seen asking traders to down shutters in some local markets.
According to the UP home department, train movement was disrupted at 19 places by bandh supporters, while the Agra-Gwalior highway was also blocked by protesters. However, no untoward incident was reported from anywhere till the time of filing of this report. While there was no order for closure of schools and colleges in the state, some educational institutions voluntarily declared a holiday as a pre-emptive step. In Delhi, though some markets were shut, especially in the inner city and traffic was thin, offices were open. Road and train services were also hit in several parts of Bihar. A group of BJP workers blocked rail traffic at Patna junction and stopped movement of a number of long-distance express and passenger trains.
Life in Kolkata and elsewhere in West Bengal was disrupted due to the 12-hour bandh called by Left parties. This could be bad news for the beleaguered TMC government, which had resolved not to allow disruption of services because of the bandh.
The final word came from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), a UPA ally. A senior NCP leader said they were wholeheartedly with the UPA on FDI in retail. As for the dissenting noises against the diesel price hike and the demands for a rollback from the NCP unit in Maharashtra, he said, “These are necessary political rituals to keep the party afloat in the state. This is akin to what Mulayam Singh Yadav is doing or the DMK is doing right now.”