The Congress is all set to join the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal. The Trinamul Congress president will reach New Delhi late Suday night and will soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi soon afterwards. An announcement on the Congress joining her ministry is expected shortly after these meetings, sources said.
Ms Banerjee is scheduled to be sworn in as the state chief minister here on Wednesday. The possibility of a common minimum programme at the state level is also being looked into, the sources said. The TMC’s smaller ally, the Socialist Unity Centre of India, which has one MLA in the new Assembly, has refused to join the government.
While in New Delhi, Ms Banerjee is also likely to meet Union home minister P. Chidamabaram to discuss law and order issues in West Bengal. As the election drew closer, Ms Banerjee had become silent on her earlier demand for the withdrawal of the “joint forces” (Central and state) in the Maoist-infested Jangalmahal area. Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, a senior Congress leader from the state, will be travelling to New Delhi Sunday night on a special Indian Air Force aircraft.
Ms Banerjee is expected to resign as railway minister in the next couple of days. But the Trinamul Congress has made it clear it wants to retain the railway portfolio at the Centre, and party leader Mukul Roy, a close Mamata confidant who is now minister of state for shipping, is tipped to be promoted to the Cabinet and take charge in Rail Bhavan. But another TMC minister of state, Mr Dinesh Trivedi, is also said to be in the reckoning for this coveted post.
Ms Banerjee is a member of the Lok Sabha representing Kolkata South. She will have to resign from Parliament and will have to get herself elected to the state Assembly within six months of taking the oath — that is by November 18, 2011.
Mr Pranab Mukherjee and Ms Banerjee had a closed-door meeting in Kolkata on Saturday night to discuss the process of government formation. The Congress is learnt to have asked for three berths in the new state Cabinet. The names doing the rounds are those of PCC president Manas Bhuyian, Mr Abhijeet Mukherjee (son of Mr Pranab Mukherjee) and Mr Debaprasad Roy. Ms Banerjee is likely to induct 20 ministers at first, and expand her team later, sources said. She has already said her ministry will be smaller than that of the Left Front, which had a team of 44 — 34 in the Cabinet and 10 ministers of state.
With West Bengal reeling under a severe financial crisis, Ms Banerjee plans to seek a special economic package for the state at her meetings with the Prime Minister and the Congress president. The CPI(M)-led government is leaving behind a debt of `2 lakh crores. A Reserve Bank report has said that “in relation to total revenue receipts, about one-third goes for interest payments and debt servicing and almost half of it (goes) for wages and salaries”.
Ms Banerjee was, meanwhile, formally elected leader of the Trinamul Congress legislature party here on Sunday, and asked her MLAs and other functionaries to “exercise restraint ... and not to take the law into their own hands”.
Mr Mukherjee also briefed Congress MLAs in Kolkata on Sunday on their duties and responsibilities. It was also noted that with 42 MLAs in its kitty, the Congress can now have its own Rajya Sabha MP from the state. Twenty-eight of the 42 MLAs are new faces.
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Buddha: Can quit politburo
Kolkata: Demolished by the Trinamul wave, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who resigned as chief minister on Sunday, offered to quit from both the politburo and the central committee of the CPI(M). Mr Bhattacharjee himself lost to Trinamul Congress candidate and his former chief secretary Manish Gupta by 16,684 votes. His resignation from the top bodies of the organisation has not yet been accepted by the Marxist leadership.