September 07, 2007

Mamata hints at walking out of NDA coalition

KOLKATA: In a move aimed at wooing minority communities of the state, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Thursday hinted at snapping ties with the BJP-led NDA alliance saying her party was trying to "stand on its own" in West Bengal.

"We are now with no one and are trying to stand on our own," Banerjee, an estranged ally of the NDA alliance, said at a madrassa student felicitation programme in Kolkata.

She said, in recent times, her party was going ahead with agitation programmes on its own, be it Singur or Nandigram.

"In West Bengal our party is going it alone."

She had never betrayed the minorities even when she was a minister in the NDA government, Banerjee said accusing the CPM of falsely dubbing her as communal.

"The CPM had even campaigned during the last Lok Sabha elections that our party was involved in the Gujarat riots.

"We fought against TADA, voted against POTA and had demanded the resignation of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the riots," the Trinamool supremo said in a apparent effort to win back the confidence of minorities who constitute 27 per cent of the total population in West Bengal.

Banerjee, however, said that she had respect for BJP stalwart A B Vajpayee and had joined the NDA "as we were determined to fight the CPM in West Bengal. Our fight against CPM atrocities will continue."

Trinamool Congress had not supported NDA's presidential candidate and abstained from voting. The party also did not disclose for whom it voted in the vice-presidential election.

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