West Bengal Cong suffers jolt

 
Blaming the Congress for the failure of seat adjustment talks with the Trinamool for the May 30 KMC polls, Mukherjee said: “I knew they would not have an alliance with the Trinamool. One cannot fight the ruling CPM from within the Congress. They are not in a position to fight the CPM.”

Although this might not be a surprise to the political observers here as Mukherjee has a knack of changing party hues quite often, the former city mayor enjoys command in some civic wards which might be of some help to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool.

Mukherjee insisted that he had over the years consistently stressed the need for an alliance between the two opposition parties to unseat the CPM-led Front from power. “I cannot support a party which I hold responsible for the collapse of the talks.”

Heaping praise on TMC chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, Mukherjee said: “There can be no effective anti-CPM alliance in the state without her.”

In the event of Mukherjee finally making it to the TMC, this would be the second time in the past five years that he quit the parent party to join the Trinamool.

According to observers here, Mukherjee has increasingly been getting marginalised in the party following his known inclination towards the Trinamool, and his decision to get back to the Trinamool is prompted by a need to ensure his political survival.