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Sonia's rebuff leaves Bengal MLAs cold

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's rebuff on Friday to protagonists of the party's mahajot [grand alliance] with the Trinamul Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party has left West Bengal party legislators led by Saugata Roy in a fix.

Roy and two other legislators had met Sonia at her 10 Janpath residence at 1030 hours IST, for about 20 minutes. She categorically told them that the Congress would have nothing to do with any alliance in which the communal BJP was present, according to Congress General Secretary in-charge of the state, Kamal Nath.

"Madam Gandhi simply reiterated our party's stand of having no truck with communal forces and emphasised that it remains unchanged. She made it amply clear that come what may it would not budge from this stand," Nath told rediff.com.

The Congress chief's virtual rebuke to Roy and the West Bengal legislators, favouring joining hands with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress for the assembly polls in the state, had an unambiguous message: they could, if they desired, leave the party, which would remain steadfast on its secular plank.

Roy and 18 other state party legislators are now caught in a cleft-stick over their future strategy.

Before leaving Calcutta for New Delhi, the 19 had indicated that they were willing to cross over to the Trinamul if Sonia rejected their entreaty of an alliance with Mamata's resurgent party.

But Sonia's rebuff has only aggravated their uneasiness.

This is because although the Trinamul chief has told them that while they are welcome to her party, she would only give tickets to those capable of winning.

"This is something about which we have to think hard. It should not turn out to be a case of the cure being worse than the disease," confided West Bengal Congress MLA Paresh Pal.

He indicated that he and his colleagues were thus in an unenviable situation wherein a "false move by any of us can cost us dearly". But Pal contended that with discussions still on with the central party leadership, the curtain had not yet been brought down on the crucial issue of the mahajot.

However, a media department official in the All-India Congress Committee pointed out that ''the matter is over''.

The MLAs are left with two choices: either bow down and accept party discipline (no mahajot in a formation including the BJP) or you can kiss the Congress goodbye.

"Our leadership is reconciled to the eventuality of them leaving the party but there will be no compromise," he asserted.

Sonia's rebuff is certain to have a fallout at the central level too. While the Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi is still trying to hardsell the majajot to the central leadership, West Bengal Congress chief and Congress Working Committee member Pranab Mukherjee is against it.

Dasmunshi and Mukherjee's diametrically opposite points of view are known to the party's central leadership. ''Although the party chief has made our stand clear, the difference of opinion between Dasmunshi and Mukherjee will not be without acrimony," the AICC media department official pointed out.

You may also want to read:
Cong rules out mahajot in Bengal: PTI

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