She may have taken their help to defeat the Left in Bengal, but Trinamool chief and railways minister Mamata Banerjee is now keeping state Congress leaders at arms length.
Murmurs of discontent are being heard from one section of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Commitee (WBPCC) over how Mamata kept them out of the loop about her post-poll initiatives for Bengal. At Wednesday’s event at the Eastern Railway headquarters where the Trinamool chief took charge as railway minister, not a single leader from the WBPCC was invited. The talk among Congress leaders is about Mamata’s ‘changed’ attitude after the results.
Though she was all praises for AICC president Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh, Banerjee did not spare a single word to acknowledge state Congress leaders who persuaded the party workers to campaign for Trinamool candidates. They are also unhappy with her for making no effort to involve the state unit in her post-poll initiatives.
A WBPCC general secretary told DNA that they expected some sort of basic courtesy from Mamata, especially since she has been been showered with so much blessings from the AICC high command. “We have to do the AICC’s bidding, which we will continue to do. But we expected her to at least inform us about her post-poll initiatives,” he said.
Mamata’s decision to post herself in Kolkata after cyclone Aila is being seen as an effort to show that she’s proactive. Though she’s leaving for New Delhi on Wednesday to participate in the swearing-in of other Trinamool ministers, Banerjee will return to Kolkata on Friday and operate from there for the time being. Analysts feel that the decision was prompted by the Trinamool supremo’s inherent tendency to hog the limelight all the time.
