Mamata turns Pawar away, reiterates promise to Vajpayee
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee on Monday
turned down the Congress overtures to rejoin the party.
"We are not power-brokers. We will honour the people's
verdict," she said replying to media queries about reports
that Congress leader Sharad Pawar had asked A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury, the lone party MP from West Bengal, to bring her back to the party fold.
Banerjee said her party would extend all possible support
from outside to the BJP to form a stable government. She could not join the government at this juncture as that would harm her party. The TC is a nascent organisation, needing much care and attention, she said.
Banerjee said her only condition to support a BJP-led
government was that it should implement the TC's promises
to the people of Bengal.
The TC's parliamentary party would meet in Delhi on
Wednesday, when Banerjee is also expected to meet the
BJP leaders.
She said the party proposed a rally at the Brigade parade
ground in Calcutta where BJP's prime ministerial nominee Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be the main speaker.
''It will be held to thank the people of Bengal who withstood the Communist Party of India-Marxist's oppression and voted fearlessly,'' she said.
Banerjee, who arrived in Delhi on Tuesday morning, was accompanied by newly-elected TC MPs Ajit Panja, Ranjit Panja, Krishna Bose, Vikram Sarkar, Sudip Bandopadhayay and Akbar Ali Khondkar, and party chairman Pankaj Banerjee.
UNI
Elections '98
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