Congress 'woos' Trinamool dissidents

The Congress Sunday said its doors were open for those former party leaders who had joined the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal. It also welcomed Trinamool leaders who have never been its members.

"The doors of the Congress are open to those leaders who were earlier with us, but are now with the Trinamool," state Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya told media persons here.

"Even those Trinamool leaders, who have never been in the Congress, who want to join us, they can talk to us. We will definitely give them a hearing and then decide on case to case basis," Bhattacharya told IANS.

The state Congress president's offer to Trinamool leaders came in the wake of the alleged revolt by three of Trinamool MPs - Tapas Pal, Satabdi Roy and Kunal Ghosh.

Another Trinamool state lawmaker Shikha Mitra has been suspended by the party for anti-party activities and comments.

Mitra's husband Somen Mitra - a Lok Sabha member - is perceived to be the rallying point for rebel leaders in the Trinamool.

Both Somen and Shikha were earlier in the Congress.

Asked whether the Congress would also welcome Ghosh, who is being grilled in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam, Bhattacharya said: "I don't want to go by any specific names. I have said, what I have said".

Describing the MPs' revolt as the "beginning of the end" for Trinamool, he said: "We also want to admit leaders from that party as a tit-for-tat for the way it is trying to engineer defections from the Congress."