Cong., Trinamool identify common ground

By Javed M. Ansari

NEW DELHI, MARCH 26. The Congress today said Ms. Mamata Banerjee had ``become the symbol of the anti-Left sentiment in West Bengal'' and that the party would have no reservations in projecting her as the leader of the combine in the State. This was stated by the AICC general secretary in charge of West Bengal, Mr. Kamal Nath, who returned from Kolkota today after a meeting with Ms. Banerjee.

Preparing the ground for seat-sharing, the party spokesperson, Mr. Anand Sharma, said, ``It is our belief and conviction that she will have nothing to do with the BJP or the NDA.''

The Congress' line assumes significance in the wake of last night's meeting between Mr. Kamal Nath and Ms. Banerjee in Kolkata, the first formal contact between the parties. After the two-hour meeting, the Congress leader held extensive discussions with the party's State unit till well past midnight.

Talking to reporters here, Mr. Kamal Nath said that the talks were based on ``the fact that Ms. Banerjee will have nothing to do with the BJP''. He exuded confidence that the Ms. Banerjee herself would make a declaration on the matter shortly.

The parties, he said, had begun the preliminary exercise of short-listing the seats that they wanted to contest. ``The whole idea is to have an arrangement which supplements our strengths and can effectively help defeat the CPI(M).''

He said the Congress had always maintained that it was in favour of joining hands with any party to defeat the Left Front in the West Bengal, so long as the party had nothing to do - directly or indirectly - with the BJP.

Mr. Kamal Nath is scheduled to hold another round of talks with the State unit leaders tonight and the Pradesh Congress Committee leaders have been asked to reach Delhi. He will also confer with the Congress president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, when she returns from her visit to Hong Kong on Wednesday, before flying out to meet the Trinamool chief again.

Despite their upbeat mood - having finally almost wooed Ms. Banerjee out of the NDA fold - the Congress leaders indicated that the seat-sharing talks would be painstaking. They stressed that for the Congress it was not the number of seats but which seats it would contest that mattered. ``Numbers alone are not important, we want winnable seats,'' said a party leader.

Mr. Kamal Nath admitted that the parties were yet to sort out the nitty-gritty of seat-sharing and yesterday's meeting was limited to ``defining the broad contours'' of the impending battle against the CPI(M).

However, informed sources indicated that the Congress would ideally want to retain the seats of all the 42 sitting MLAs in its ranks; it is also insisting on being allowed to contest from the Assembly segments where the party stood second in the last election. The Congress initially had 79 MLAs in the present Assembly; but a series of desertions saw the number reduced to 42. However, Trinamool Congress sources maintained that the ground realities have undergone a major shift and the Congress cannot demand seats on the basis of past performance. ``A combined Congress, with Ms. Banerjee in its ranks, won 79 seats. Now, the situation is different.''

Yet another problem is that Ms. Banerjee has already announced the names of candidates contesting in 228 seats, some of which the Congress too wants to contest. Both sides admit that the process is a difficult one, but maintain that ultimately an agreement would be hammered out. ``Whatever seats we win will go into Ms. Banerjee's basket, so where is the conflict,'' asked Mr. Kamal Nath.

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