The Congress-Mamata Banerjee spat became absorbing on Thursday with Sultan Ahmed, deputy parliamentary party leader of the Trinamool Congress, meeting National Democratic Alliance (NDA) convener Sharad Yadav.
The meeting comes days after senior BJP leaders L K Advani and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi met Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and called her a natural ally of the BJP.
Senior leaders of the NDA indicated that even though Ahmed met Yadav, the possibility of an alliance is not on the cards immediately, as the West Bengal chief minister is still in alliance with the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the entire leadership of BJP-led NDA is busy with the Assembly elections.
“We have been in constant touch with Mamata Banerjee on the issues of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and the Lok Pal debate. There is no difference between the views of Mamata Banerjee and the NDA. Congress has only 205 seats in Lok Sabha and they cannot pass any Bill in Parliament without the help of the Trinamool Congress,” said a senior leader of NDA.
The NDA leadership elaborated that as Banerjee doesn’t agree with most policy decisions being taken by the Centre, she holds the key to any major legislative decision of the government.
“Mamata Banerjee is the key. We can work with her to ensure that legislative decisions not agreeable to us are vetoed by the West Bengal chief minister,” the NDA leader said.
The BJP-led NDA is looking for new alliance partners at the Centre, and the Trinamool Congress is one of the possible allies the party is looking at eagerly. Even before Mamata Banerjee had won the West Bengal Assembly elections, she has invited Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to campaign for the party in the state.
However, the alliance didn’t work out in West Bengal after differences on seat sharing. Banerjee wanted her party’s candidates to contest on most of the seats and she already had an alliance with the Congress in the state.
