Leaders talk, cadres sulk

By Malabika Bhattacharya

KOLKATA, MARCH 26. The efforts of the Trinamool Congress and the Congress to tie up for the coming Assembly election in West Bengal received a jolt today when a large section of functionaries of both the parties openly aired their opposition to the alliance.

A few hundred Pradesh Congress Committee members today announced they would sit on a dharna on March 28 in front of the State party headquarters in Central Kolkata from dawn to dusk to impress upon the Congress high command the need to adopt a dignified approach in the talks with Trinamool.

Congress leaders - Mr. Binodananda Banerjee, Mr. Shivaji Singh Roy, Mr. Kanak Debnath and others - would try to convey the message to Ms. Sonia Gandhi, party president, that they would not surrender their dignity to the Trinamool just for the sake of a few seats. `Dignity before anything else,' would be their slogan for the day.

According to them the Congress would do injustice to its grassroots workers if it bowed to the pressures of the Trinamool chief, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, to accept the few seats she has offered. These workers, they explained, stood by the party like a rock at a time when hordes of Congressmen and women were deserting their parent party seeking a rosy future in the Trinamool. ``We were called the communists' B-team only the other day. Now, she (Ms. Banerjee) needs us more than we do. She is the one who wants to be Chief Minister, so let her agree to our terms,'' Mr. Binodananda Banerjee said.

The Trinamool camp is unhappy, too. A similar group within the party is active and trying to come out in the open with its anti- alliance views. Interestingly, the Kolkata Mayor, Mr. Subrata Mukherjee, thinks the alliance would not have that magical quality to bring the two warring sides together at the shop-floor level. ``It's the leaders who would embrace one another, not the workers.''

Mr. Mukherjee, a key Trinamool functionary, fears that the ground-level workers would try and sabotage each others' prospects. The extent of unhappiness in the Trinamool became evident when some of the party's key functionaries from Kolkata and the districts started returning to the parent party since yesterday. As expected, the State Congress is welcoming them.

According to sources, the State Congress functionaries are upset with the terms and conditions Ms. Banerjee is trying to impose on it through the Congress high command in total disregard of the State leaders.

Ms. Gandhi deputed Mr. Kamal Nath, AICC general secretary in charge of West Bengal affairs, to work out the alliance with Ms. Banerjee. Neither Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, WBPCC president nor Mr. Somen Mitra, former party chief who single- handedly kept the Congress from being reduced to a signboard over the past few years, were taken into account.

The negotiation did not progress the way it should have, because Mr. Kamal Nath could only talk ideology and not the nitty-gritty of seat-sharing, of which he knows little. By contrast, Ms. Banerjee was in an advantageous position as she knows the electoral scenario in Bengal like the back of her hand, and so forcefully argued with Ms. Gandhi's representative to extract the maximum out of the Congress.

Mr. Kamal Nath, on his part, had to do without the valuable inputs from the Mukherjee-Mitra combine which could have helped the Congress come to an understanding without hurting anyone.

Mr. Kamal Nath met Ms. Banerjee in Kolkata late last night and left for New Delhi early this morning taking with him an offer of 35 seats from Ms. Banerjee, a number far short of the Congress' expectation.

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