Mamata refuses support, but won't let govt fall

Finally, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able to talk to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. It was both good news and bad news: the Trinamul Congress is sticking to its 'no FDI in retail' stance, but will not allow the government to fall.

On Monday, when the political crisis over foreign direct investment in the retail sector had reached alarming proportions, Singh spoke to Trinamul Congress leader and Union minister Sudeep Bandopadhyay. “I have been trying to speak to Mamata all day” the PM told Bandopadhyaya.

“Sir, she’s in a remote part of Bengal called Howrah; that’s why she has been unable to speak to you,” was the reply.

He had not reckoned with the PM’s familiarity with Bengal’s geography. “I know where Howrah is,” said the PM in measured tones.

“Sir, you are thinking about the Howrah which is next to Kolkata. I am talking about the district Howrah, which is very far,” said an embarrassed Bandopadhaya. “I am awake till 11 pm. Please tell her to talk to me,” said the PM.

The conversation finally took place late last night. The PM is not the only one Banerjee has been playing footsie with. Two days earlier, she told a party colleague with some glee on how she’d call finance minister Pranab Mukherjee at 2.30 pm, fully knowing the finance minister was fond of his siesta and would not be available to take the call. When Mukherjee returned the call at 4 pm, Banerjee was not free to speak to him.

In between, while negotiations were on, it was party MP Mukul Roy who spoke to Mukherjee, while Banerjee made Bandopadhyaya the party pointsman for the PM. Ever the master of tactical politics, Banerjee also asked cabinet minister Dinesh Trivedi to stay away from the cabinet meeting yesterday. On Friday, Trivedi explained what he had been busy with: “I wanted to spend some time with Dominique Lapierre, the author of Freedom at Midnight and City of Joy (it is another matter that West Bengal may prefer to forget the latter book because of the riots it caused in 1991).”

All the moves Banerjee has made are calculated to give the impression that she and her party are the rebels in the Congress-led UPA coalition. She made her position clear to the PM -- no support for the FDI in retail decision, but no letting his government fall.

The PM told her that if West Bengal did not want FDI in retail, it could reject it. But it had no right to stop other states from getting it.

The PM and party managers also sought out other allies, including the Samajwadi Party. Efforts will be on over the next four days to get them to either abstain or walk out during the adjournment motion on the issue. Commerce minister Anand Sharma has circulated a note to Congress MPs on the rationale of FDI in retail.

At a public forum, Mukherjee criticised those, including Congress allies, who were opposed to the liberalisation move. "Often narrow political gains take precedence over early implementation of a policy framework, even when it is being done in a calibrated and sensitive manner," Mukherjee said. To which a Trinamul minister said, sotto voce, that it was Mukherjee who was behaving in a narrow-minded manner.