rediff.com: Panja hints at joining NDA govt: PTI

"What is the harm if I become a minister? I have long experience. Don't the people of the state and the country want me to become a minister? For that I need not join the Bharatiya Janata Party as they [the TC leadership] say. There is no problem in my joining the ministry," Panja told a press conference in Calcutta.

Panja, who first became a minister in West Bengal in 1971, said the question of hankering after a ministry did not arise.

He was commenting on the TC leadership's charge that he was trying to become a minister in the Vajpayee government.

Panja, however, made it clear that there was no talk of his joining the NDA government during his recent meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

He has also convened a public meeting in Calcutta on Wednesday in an apparent bid to test the waters.

On whether he wanted a change of leadership in the Trinamul, he avoided a direct reply, saying cryptically, "If the top leader falls ill, someone has to substitute her."

Despite being stripped of all key posts in the party, he maintained, "I am still the state party chairman until the people remove me."

Ridiculing TC chief whip Sudip Bandopadhyay's reported argument that he would fall under the anti-defection law if he joined the Vajpayee government, Panja retorted, "Does he know what is the anti-defection law?"

Reiterating that the TC's decision to strip him of all party posts was "illegal and self-destructive", the dissident leader said he had called the public meeting to assess whether the people had accepted it.

On whether he had invited other party parliamentarians and leaders, Panja said, "I invite all of them through you. If I invite them separately, it may be wrongly construed."

The dissident leader, on his earlier claim that some TC MPs were with him, said, "They say something to me and something else to the media."

Reiterating that the Trinamul Congress continued to be a part of the NDA, he said despite its claim the party was yet to send the letter on its pullout from the NDA to either the prime minister or the Lok Sabha Speaker or NDA convenor George Fernandes.

Panja also said that he would attend NDA meetings in future on 48 hours' notice.

Launching a vitriolic attack on party chief Mamata Banerjee, Panja claimed that after the NDA's victory in the last Lok Sabha poll, Banerjee had sent him to Vajpayee to "reserve the Railways portfolio for the party" although it was the prime minister's prerogative to distribute portfolios.

The dissident leader said people were gradually losing confidence with Banerjee and the TC's popularity was waning day by day.

"The decision to remove me from all party posts was another glaring instance. But I have not yet received a letter to that effect," he said.

Panja claimed that Mamata and Bandopadhyay were not primary members of the party.

Alleging that Banerjee had always followed "arm-twisting policies to secure various things for herself", Panja said she had put the last nail in the coffin of the Trinamul Congress by making a wild allegation against Chief Election Commissioner M S Gill.

On why he did not he speak to Banerjee, who was in the city, Panja retorted, "Earlier, I tried to talk to her but failed. Now, the doctors must talk to her."

Commenting on Panja's statement that the decision to remove him from the post of chairman of the state unit of TC was 'illegal', Bandopadhyay said, "He (Panja) knows the party constitution better than me. His charges are bogus."

Panja was appointed state unit chairman of the TC by the party chief, he said, adding that no meeting was convened at that time.

"Now, the party's working committee has adopted a unanimous resolution on his removal from all posts," he said.

Bandopadhyay charged that Panja had tried to project to the BJP leadership that he had at least three out of eight Trinamul MPs with him, which had proved to be 'untrue'.


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