Even Rabindranath Tagore has failed to bring Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on a common platform. The two have not been talking to each other for the past few years, Banerjee has also asked her party colleagues not to hold any meeting with the chief minister. This has taken a toll on the two special committees set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. Already, the committees (one headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the other by the prime minister) have met twice. Banerjee skipped both the meetings, while Bhattacharjee attended only the first meeting. Both cited political engagements in the municipal poll-bound West Bengal as reasons for their absence from New Delhi.
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