Cong in talks with Mamata

Musharraf to keep his uniform

The Congress and the Trinamool Congress today started the first round of playing political footsie when senior Congress leader and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee today did not rule out possibility of a state-level electoral tie-up with Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress keeping the 2006 Assembly poll in mind but hinted the ball was in Mamata's court to decide in this regard.

"In politics everything is possible or impossible", Mukherjee told reporters in Kolkata when asked whether there was any possibility of such an adjustment between the two parties keeping in view the next year's city civic polls and West Bengal Assembly elections scheduled in 2006.

"It fully depends on them (Trinamool Congress)," Mukherjee, who is also the chief of the state Congress, said, hinting it was up to Banerjee to take a decision for an electoral tie-up with Congress severing its links with BJP.

The problem is Trinamool's antipathy to the CPI(M). The Congress-led UPA government is being supported from the outside by the Left parties and it goes against Banerjee's grain to countenance a relationship with the Congress under the circumstances.

There is no doubt that the forthcoming elections will see the Congress and the Left alliance ranged against each other in the state. Banerjee wants to corner the "genuine opposition to Left" slot for herself and her party.

However, a section of her cadres say she must sever ties with the BJP if she wants to aspire to this slot because links with the BJP is costing TC dear among the minorities where Banerjee has had a special place.

Union Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi had recently urged Banerjee to return to the Congress after severing her alliance with the BJP.

The TC had earlier denied reports that Congress had initiated discussions with it to try for seat adjustment at the state level keeping in view next year's civic elections and 2006 Assembly polls, if it was not possible for Banerjee to return to the Congress given the present political arrangement at the national level with the Congress being an ally of the Left in Delhi.

Speculation on this issue began after Banerjee met Mukherjee at his residence in New Delhi on 6 December. Mukherjee said this was a "social meeting".

After the NDA's defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, a section of senior Trinamool Congress leaders had questioned the policy of continuing an alliance with the BJP.

A senior party legislator and former union minister Saugata Roy had said the alliance had cost the party dear in terms of minority votes. Some had advocated an alliance with Congress. The party's minority leader and general secretary Sultan Ahmed had said the BJP's determination to return to hard-line Hinduvta had complicated things for Trinamool.

"There are about three to four MLAs who want to return to the Congress. They are free to leave", said Madan Mitra, the party's youth wing chief and a close aide of the Trinamool Congress supremo.

Trinamool has not had much success in its alliances - It fought the last Lok Sabha elections as NDA, but suffered humiliating defeat with Banerjee being the lone winner retaining her South Kolkata parliamentary seat.

In 2001, it aligned with the Congress to contest the assembly elections, believing it could dislodge the Left Front government but failed in its efforts.