Business Standard

BJP, Mamata yet to settle issues

MANDATE 2004

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Press Trust Of India Kolkata
For Mamata Banerjee and her lost-and-found saffron ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the challenge from the ruling Left Front is as much an obstacle as the friction that continued to dog the two parties in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.
 
The relations between the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC) and the BJP are not at their best at the moment.
 
Differences between the two opposition parties came to the fore during the seat sharing discussions. The state BJP leadership was stubborn and the talks ultimately got stuck over two seats ""Purulia and Bankura.
 
The BJP argued that in 1999, it had contested the Purulia Lok Sabha seat, while the Bankura parliamentary constituency was contested by an independent backed by the NTC. Therefore, neither of the two seats belonged to the NTC, the party said, while laying claim to them.
 
Mamata, however, refused to be swayed by the arguments of the BJP. The stalemate continued for over a month after which the state BJP at the instance of the party high command was forced to concede the two seats. In lieu the saffron party received only Darjeeling.
 
Now that with electioneering underway, attempts for the two parties to work together at the grassroots level were not in much evidence.
 
But the NTC being the larger partner in West Bengal, there are also complaints by the BJP that it was being ignored. BJP workers expressed their resentment when state BJP chief Tathagata Roy went to attend a meeting at Diamond Harbour.
 
TNC sources said the party had to face the ire of a section of workers for leaving some seats to the BJP including Midnapur and Darjeeling, where the Tranamool had a strong support base.
 
The situation came to such a pass that NTC general secretary Partha Chatterjee had to summon Malda's party leader and chairman of the English Bazar Municipality Krishnendu Chowdhury to explain why he had openly sided with the Congress candidate and former Railway Minister ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury in the Malda Lok Sabha seat. Chowdhury had participated in a poll-related padayatra with the Malda strongman.
 
Krishnendu Chowdhury expressed reservation about supporting BJP candidate Badsah Alam, an expelled CPI(M) leader who was allegedly behind the incident of assault of Mamata Banerjee at the Hazra crossing in south Kolkata in 1993.
 
The state BJP chief's statement that RSS workers were working for some TNC candidates also angered the Trinamool leadership. Concerned that his would have an adverse effect on its the Muslim vote bank, the TNC was quick to deny this.
 
While the BJP rekindled the Ram temple issue, a section of leaders of the TNC were wary and soft-pedalled it saying that "religion should not be mixed with politics."
 
"We are a secular party. In our campaign we will give thrust on development-oriented issues, not on the temple issue," party sources said.

 
 

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First Published: Apr 10 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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