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Mamata threat highlights pre-poll dilemma

Union Railway Minister and Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's threat to pull out of the National Democratic Alliance has evoked mixed reactions in West Bengal, her home state.

While the Left Front has termed her statement as 'opportunistic', leaders of the West Bengal Pradesh Qaumi Tanzeem say that what Mamata said on Tuesday was in keeping with her commitment towards upliftment of minorities in Bengal.

However, observers feel that Mamata was desperately looking for excuses to part ways with the Bharatiya Janata Party before next year's assembly elections as she cannot afford to ignore the crucial 26 per cent Muslim votes in the state.

Ever since she lady entered into an electorate alliance with the BJP in the state, Muslims, once her ardent admirers, have begun distancing themselves from her.

Addressing a mammoth crowd at a convention organised by the Tanzeem in the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Calcutta on Tuesday, Mamata had said that she would pullout of the NDA if the BJP-led government at the Centre shows disrespect to Muslims' causes.

Elaborating on her party's proposed minority-friendly policies, she had said she would give Urdu the second language status in areas where Muslims constitute over 10 percent of the population.

Sultan Ahmad, the Tanzeem's president and a new entrant to the Trinamul, showered praises on Mamata for promising to do 'something ignored by successive Left Front governments in West Bengal'.

"What is new in her statements? She has often fought for Muslims' causes. In 24 years of LF rule, Muslims lived like second class citizen in Bengal. Be it government jobs or education, the communists seldom paid heed to their interests. Isn't it amazing that Muslims will now have reservation for vacancies in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and their language will assume official status? That a capacity crowd of 15,000 people attended the function on Tuesday shows that Muslims see a new ray of hope in Mamata Banerjee," Ahmed told rediff.com.

He refuted the charges that Mamata's announcement was aimed at wooing the decisive 26 percent minority votes in Bengal ahead of the 2001 assembly elections. He said Mamata would be in the NDA only as long as Atal Bihari Vajpayee continued to head it as the latter, despite belonging to a party like the BJP, was a secular man.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) state secretary Anil Biswas had described Mamata's announcement as a poll gimmick saying there was no provision to reserve jobs for a community either in the CMC or the state government.

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