KOLKATA: Both Trinamool Congress and the Congress in West Bengal are looking at a sustained joint movement against the ruling Left Front, which could go beyond their collective opposition to the proposed Tata Motors project at Singur in Hooghly district.

Much significance is being given by leaders of both parties to a telephonic talk on Tuesday night between Union Information and Broadcasting Minister and local Congress stalwart Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee.

The two, it is learnt, have agreed to take forward their joint agitation against the setting up of industry on farmland in the State with special emphasis on the proposed car manufacturing plant at Singur.

Trinamool Congress general secretary Mukul Roy told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the two leaders were expected to "meet at the earliest" to discuss the future of their joint movement on the Singur issue - the "primary" meeting point of the two parties as well as to explore the possibility of extending the sphere of the movement to other issues on which they share a consensus.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, reiterated earlier this week that his Government was determined to see the setting up of the Singur plant through.

The failure of Monday's 12-hour Statewide bandh, called by the Trinamool Congress and supported by the Congress, to evoke much response only vindicated the decision to set up the plant at Singur, the Chief Minister had indicated.

Congress leaders meet

Mr. Dasmunshi met senior State leaders of the Congress at his residence here on Tuesday evening and discussed the situation arising from the joint campaign with the Trinamool Congress on the Singur land issue. But the fact that the Trinamool Congress remains a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance is a tricky point for a rapprochement between it and the Congress.

Senior Trinamool Congress leader Ajit Panja on Monday announced that his party "is still in the NDA."

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