Trinamool Congress 'ready' to quit UPA; Abdul Kalam opts out of race


The sigh of relief that former President A P J Abdul Kalam’s decision not to challenge Pranab Mu-kherjee in a contest for a second term at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, proved to be rather short-lived for the official UPA candidate. For Kalam may have gracefully declined to join the race realising the numbers are overwhelmingly staked in Mukherjee’s favour, but Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who had been pushing for his candidature, was clearly not ready to stop the game of one-upmanship.


While holding a meeting of her party MPs and MLAs in Kolkata she issued a veiled threat by suggesting a possible exit from the UPA government “if such a situation arises’’. Isolated in the UPA, ditched by both Mulayam Singh and Kalam, Mamata seemed bent on acting like Congreve’s Zara: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. And, all the scorn was directed at Mukherjee/UPA.


Though a senior member of her party, MoS Health Sudip Bandyopadhyay, subsequently denied that the Trinamool Ministers in the UPA Cabinet had offered to resign or have kept their resignation ready with Mamata — “we are not toppling the UPA government’’, Delhi was already shaken by the initial tremor.


It is, perhaps, in anticipation of such a scenario that the Congress went into damage control mode. The party first issued a formal gag order on senior leader, Digvijay Singh, for calling Mamata “immature’’ and “erratic’’, and then told the media that “Digvijay Singh is not our official spokesperson’’.


This was closely followed by a statement by the ‘official’ Congress spokesperson, Manish Tewari: “We would like West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader to support the candidature of Mukherjee.’’ The Congress also thanked Kalam profusely for declining Mamata’s offer to contest the presidential polls.


But Didi was clearly not moved by the Congress wooing nor by Dada’s “brotherly’’ overtures.

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