Senior Congress leader and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said the party has not taken a decision on joining a Mamata Banerjee-led government in West Bengal.
“This is an issue on which a decision has not been taken,” Mr Mukherjee said in a press conference held at the AICC headquarters in the afternoon. He was responding to a question on whether the Congress would participate in the government. But well-placed sources in the Congress said if the Trinamul Congress has been sharing power at the Centre how can the Congress stay away from power in West Bengal, especially when the two parties fought the electoral battle together.
The Congress must be wanting an honourable power-sharing arrangement with the Trinamul Congress.
Mr Mukherjee is expected to go to Kolkata on Saturday while Ms Banerjee is likely to come to New Delhi on Sunday to meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
The Congress leaders are tightlipped about whether Mrs Gandhi would attend the swearing-in ceremony of Ms Banerjee in Kolkatta next week.
Meanwhile, the Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mrs Gandhi, deliberated in the evening on the issue of joining a Mamata Banerjee-led government but there was no official word on the matter.
A senior party leader, who declined to be identified, suggested that the Congress response in this regard would be cautious and depended upon the mind of the Trinamool leader.
The Core Group meeting ,also attended by Mr Mukherjee, home minister P Chidambaram, defence minister A K Antony and Mrs Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, reviewed the election results.