A day after Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee backing her Tamil Nadu counterpart Jayalalithaa’s prime ministerial ambitions, the latter called her up on Friday to express her gratitude for the gesture.
The two leaders talked at length about the electoral scenario, sources at Nabanna (Bengal secretariat) said.
Sources also confirmed that the two sides had agreed to talk on post-poll scenario on the vital issue as to who would lead the next Government at the Centre.
Banerjee had on Thursday swiftly moved into express her “no-objection” if the AIADMK supremo’s name was proposed for the prime ministership after her talks with the left Front failed over seat-sharing in Tamil Nadu.
The CPI and the CPI(M) had demanded two seats each while Jayalalithaa had offered one each to them. The two parties called off the talks and have decided to go it alone in that State.
“I have no problem. I don’t bother about the chair. I care for the people,” Banerjee had told a national television when asked to comment whether she would back the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in her prime ministerial ambitions.
Though the left leaders in Bengal refused to comment in public about the failure of talks with Jayalalithaa privately many conceded that it would definitely have its electoral consequences “if not materially at least psychologically as in urban areas we are already facing questions about the efficacy of the Third Front” without AGP, BJD and AIADMK.
Ironically for the Marxists, another so-called ally of the Third Front Samajwadi Party had decided to queer the pitch for them in Bengal — where left were already in deep trouble facing the ruling Trinamool Congress — when the UP ruling party leaders announced their decision to field candidates in this State too.
Samajwadi MP and former left Front Minister Kiranmoy Nanda earlier said that as the Marxists had not allotted his party any seat in Bengal it would go it alone in this State. “We have not been given any seat in this State so we will definitely fight from here on our own,” Nanda said adding his party would field at least candidates from Bengal.
Meanwhile in a new development, another film star Moushumi Chatterjee on Friday made a curious entry at the Nabanna meeting the Chief Minister at her office giving rise to speculation that she could as well be given a ticket “perhaps from Mumbai.”
The matinee heartthrob of the seventies, however, would not comment on whether her visit to the Nabanna was encouraged by Banerjee’s star-studded list of candidates from Bengal where she had fielded a galaxy of film stars and footballers including Moon Moon Sen and Baichung Bhutia.
Chatterjee refuted suggestions that she was being fielded by Trinamool Congress. However, sources said that the Chief Minister wanted to know from her whether she was willing to contest from anywhere outside Bengal.
Moushumi Chatterjee had earlier contested on Congress ticket from Kolkata North-East constituency in 2004.
Earlier, Banerjee had said that veteran actor Biswajit had expressed his willingness to contest the polls saying he could be fielded from Delhi.