The Hindu : National : Mamata's move buoys up Congress, leaves BJP confused

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Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006

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National

Mamata's move buoys up Congress, leaves BJP confused

Marcus Dam

Trinamool to support Congress candidate in Malda by-election

KOLKATA: Is a new non-Left arrangement in the offing in West Bengal? This is the question being asked within Opposition political parties in the State.

Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's announcement that her party will not be fielding a candidate and supporting instead the Congress nominee for the coming Lok Sabha by-election from West Bengal's Malda constituency is what the Congress leadership here would like to interpret as a move "towards the consolidation of all secular and nationalist anti-Left forces" in the State.

The Trinamool's National Democratic Alliance partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is distinctly "unhappy" with the announcement, also perceives it as "an apparent attempt by the Trinamool to get close to the Congress."

"She is free to leave the NDA if she considers us a liability in the State," a senior leader of the party said here on Tuesday.

Ms. Banerjee's move could threaten existing political equations between non-Left parties in the State. She might have explained it as one made out of deference to the veteran Congress leader, A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury whose death in April has necessitated the by-poll; but he was also a votary of a grand electoral alliance of non-Left parties, which the Trinamool leader too had clamoured for on earlier occasions.

Politically significant

Next month's by-elections to three Lok Sabha and one Assembly seat in the State have suddenly become politically significant in view of Ms. Banerjee's announcement.

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