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PM hopeful about Trinamul support

Mamata Banerjee gave no indication of a change in her decision to resign from the Union cabinet despite a midnight air-dash by Defence Minister George Fernandes on a trouble-shooting mission.

Adding a twist to the crisis facing the NDA, senior Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi hinted at the emergence of a third front in West Bengal, sans the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and BJP under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee.

On Sunday, Vajpayee told reporters just before the meeting of the BJP national executive in New Delhi, "We hope their (Trinamul Congress) support will continue," and added that the government was in touch with Mamata Banerjee.

Asked whether Mamata was a party to the decision to hike the prices of petroleum products, the prime minister said she was very much present at the NDA meeting which discussed the issue. He added that even though she had expressed some reservation, there was consensus among other coalition partners on the decision.

The BJP ruled out roll back of the hike in prices of petroleum prices. "There is no scope for roll back as only the minimum burden of the hike (in prices of petro products) has been passed on to the people," party vice president Jana Krishnamurthy told reporters after a meeting of the party's national executive.

Krishnamurthy said, "The government had taken this very difficult decision after due discussion in the Cabinet and in the NDA coordination committee meeting. We will appeal to them (Trinamul) to understand why the government had to take this decision."

Fernandes, the NDA convenor, had flown in to Calcutta late on Saturday night along with senior official in the Prime Minister's Office Sudheendra Kulkarni and met Banerjee early on Sunday morning. The meeting lasted for about one and half hours.

Banerjee told reporters after the meeting that she had conveyed the Trinamul Congress' sentiments to Fernandes. "If people's interests are hurt, we are also hurt. Our protest is in the interest of the people."

"We can take any decision in the interest of the people," she asserted.

Fernandes refused to divulge to reporters what transpired in his parleys with Banerjee and her party colleague and Union Minister of State for External Affairs Ajit Panja.

In another development, senior Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi hinted at the emergence of a third front in West Bengal, sans the CPI-M and BJP under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee.

"If the distance between the BJP and the Trinamul Congress further widens in the context of the present impasse created by Banerjee's decision to quit the Vajpayee Cabinet, there is a possibility of a secular democratic front coming into being in the state," Dasmunshi said.

Dasmunshi's comments were crucial in the context of West Bengal going to assembly polls early next year, months after former state Congress unit chief A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury had initiated a move to forge a mahajot (grand alliance) with the Trinamul Congress to fight the CPI(M). However, the proposal was shot down by the Congress high command when Mamata refused to part company with the BJP.

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