Search the Internet           Tips

Trinamul softens stand,
impasse may end: PTI

However, in Bombay, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik said that the three-pronged strategy adopted by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance will help wipe out a staggering deficit in the country's oil pool account by March 2001.

''There is no possibility of a rollback in prices of petro products,'' Naik reiterated.

Although Banerjee kept away from the press, party policy-making body chairman Pankaj Banerjee told newsmen at her residence that negotiations were on with an emissary of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over the telephone. ''Some solution will come out within a few hours,'' he said.

''We are awaiting a decision from them regarding some concessions. We hope the Centre will take suitable action to give some relief to the common people,'' he said.

Another Trinamul Congress leader Sobhandev Chattopadhyay, however, said there was no new development so far. ''But talks are on. Any information may come from Delhi any moment. Then she will come and speak to you,'' he told waiting mediapersons in Calcutta.

Party sources said that Sudheendra Kulkarni, a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office, spoke to the railway minister thrice during the day. The sources, however, declined to divulge the outcome of the negotiations.

To a question regarding Trinamul's ultimatum for the withdrawal from the NDA within three days which expires on Tuesday, the party's policy-making body chairman said, ''We will stick to it'' if no solution emerges.

He said that they would discuss the course of action if no solution emerged.

Tell us what you think of this report