Wither her national ambitions ballooning further against the backdrop of internal turmoil in the Samajwadi Party and the ailing health of AIADMK chief Jayalalitha, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to have her New Delhi plans ready for the 2019 elections, Trinamool Congress insiders said.
As a first strategy she is almost through with her plans to effect a floor-coordination with the Congress in Parliament. This, particularly after a weak and tentative left Front parted ways with the tri-colour party following a brief honeymoon in Bengal. When asked, senior Trinamool Congress leader and MP Sudip Bandopadhyay said everything was possible in politics. “Why notIJ” he said adding there was no wrong in going for a floor-coordination in the Winter Session with the Congress when asked to comment on the issue.
The short sentence tends to assume significance because Bandopadhyay is not known to speak out of turn and without the nod of his party supremo.
According to insiders Banerjee is trying to give shape to a large coalition of opposition parties led by the Congress that she calls “Federal Front,” as opposed to “National Front” peddled by the left Front.
The Chief Minister is not only in touch with the “like-minded parties” save Mulayam Singh Yadav but she has firmly stood behind Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal through her latest tweets against their brief detention in Delhi when they went to show solidarity with the family of a former Army man who committed suicide with the much debated OROP issue.
Banerjee also questioned encounter death of SIMI terrorists in Bhopal. It is another matter that her detractors in Bengal promptly raised the question of what they called a “similar “encounter” of Maoist leader Kishenji in November 2011.
The Chief Minister also attacked the Centre for “breaking the federal system” by circumventing the State Government and sending MNREGA money to the departments concerned to be credited to the accounts of the job-card holders. She also attacked the Modi Government for “contacting the Chief Secretary of the State” and instead of the State Cabinet.