Mamata Banerjee is not happy with the Congress’ “domineering ways,” for which her 29-member strong Trinamool Congress may abstain from the Speaker’s election, sources said.
According to TMC sources, the Bengal Chief Minister is unhappy that the Congress leadership did not consult her on the Opposition candidate for the Speaker’s post and “announced the name of K Suresh unilaterally”.
Mamata, who spoke at length to senior leaders Sudip Bandopadhyay, Kalyan Banerjee, Abhishek Banerjee, Saugata Roy, and Derek O’Brien via video conferencing, will make the final decision on the issue, sources said, adding, “the TMC has its own opinion and reservations and will not like to be dictated on issues.”
Abhishek, who met with other senior leaders in Parliament after his talks with Mamata, said, “Unfortunately, we have not been consulted.”
Abhishek Banerjee is the general secretary of the TMC and is considered the party’s second in command. His statement came soon after senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced that there had been a unanimous decision on the Speaker’s name and that all the parties jointly decided to field Suresh for the post.
Sudip Bandopadhyay too said that his party was not consulted on the issue. “I came to know all about it on the television … even Derek O’Brien asked me whether there was any discussion because he too did not know about is … it is for the Congress to explain this,” he said remaining non-committal on whether his party would take part in the elections or not.
Another senior leader considered very close to the Bengal Chief Minister said in Kolkata that she was not in favour of putting up a Speaker’s candidate at all. “The TMC is not used to domineering ways … and will definitely give a thought over the issue … but our party is not happy with the way the name of the Speaker candidate was decided without our leader (Mamata Banerjee) being kept in the loop … if you consider TMC to be an important constituent of the INDIA alliance then it has to be given its due honour,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a new development sources in the Pradesh Congress said that their national leadership indeed had called up the TMC top brass to discuss the issue. “The calls went unanswered,” a PCC spokesperson said without however sharing his source of information. He added, “Congress knows the importance of all the alliance partners and will take all care to keep the adhesive intact.”
The leader also said that “on one hand the TMC is saying that it has not been consulted on the other it is saying that it was not for putting up a Speaker candidate … the two things cannot happen at the same time.”
Though the Left leadership would not comment on the issue a senior leader quoted party Rajya Sabha MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya saying, “Mamata Banerjee is an unreliable stick to lean on will desert the INDIA ship to soothe her own interests … she will abstain because to take care of the ED and CBI in the corruption cases against TMC leaders’ names… but in doing so she will once again be exposed as she had been on earlier occasions… she bailed out the earlier BJP Government by taking this path of abstaining.”
