M A I N   N E W S

BJP has ‘shut doors’ on Trinamool

Kolkata, March 28
Within a fortnight of Ms Mamata Banerjee withdrawing from the NDA, the BJP-Trinamool electoral alliance in West Bengal today struck a virtual dead end with the BJP declaring it had shut doors on the TC and was preparing to field candidates in most of the 294 seats in the coming assembly elections.

After weeks of haze on the status of the alliance between the two parties, Mr Kailashpati Mishra told reporters here that his party’s doors were “now closed” to the Trinamool Congress.

“Yes,” Mr Mishra said when asked if the BJP had shut its doors to the TC. He said the party was going ahead with plans to contest all the 294 seats in the coming polls in alliance with the NDA partners.

Accusing the Trinamool chief, Ms Banerjee, of “stabbing the Vajpayee government in the back which is worse than Tehelka expose,” Mr Mishra said no alliance was possible with the Trinamool unless its chairperson Ms Banerjee declared support to the NDA government at the Centre.

Reflecting hardening of stand, he said there would be no change in the BJP’s stand even if the alliance talks between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress were to fail.

The BJP was screening a preliminary list of 450 candidates belonging to it and its allies, the Samata Party, the Janata Dal (U), the Biju Janata Dal and the Lok Jana Shakti Party, Mr Mishra said.

“The BJP is not waiting for any one. We are making all preparations, but we have not closed our doors. It is for Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee to decide how committed she is to dislodge the Left Front government in the state,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Congress, which is seeking a tie-up with the Trinamool, said the parting of ways between the BJP and the TC was “but natural” and hoped that other NDA partners would recognise the reality and the real face of the BJP and follow suit. PTI

Cong bids for 70 seats in WB
Prashant Sood
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 28
Determined to contest at least 40 “winnable” seats in West Bengal, the Congress is bargaining hard with the Trinamool Congress to get about 70 seats in the state out of which half are of its choice.

With both the Trinamool Congress and the Congress facing a deluge of prospective contestants after it became known that the two parties were likely to contest the assembly elections together, hectic parleys are being held in New Delhi and Kolkata to arrive at an agreement.

Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath who is also the general secretary-in charge of West Bengal today had parleys with state Congress leaders in New Delhi. Though Mr Kamal Nath would soon be going to Kolkata to talk to Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, the seat-sharing agreement is likely to come through only after Congress president Sonia Gandhi enters the picture.

The Trinamool is facing serious problems in identifying the constituencies which should be given to the Congress. The problem has been confounded by the Trinamool having already decided upon its candidates in a majority of constituencies. Congress leaders like Somen Mitra, who have been insisting on contesting from particular seats, have been told by the Trinamool leaders about their compulsions in making readjustments.

Under the pre-Tehelka expose arrangement, the Trinamool had given 29 seats to the BJP and a few to its other allies including the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. The Congress parleys with the Trinamool are going on in the hope that the latter would eventually snap its ties with the BJP.