Partners’ bonhomie on dais

Kolkata, March 7: They smiled on stage and generous praise flowed but the municipal poll seat-sharing thorn kept needling Pranab Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee.

Mukherjee, the Union finance minister and Bengal Congress chief, and Mamata, the railway minister and Trinamul Congress boss, were in New Alipore at a foundation stone-laying event for the LIC.

In his brief speech, Mukherjee praised Mamata as “Banglar netri”. “Though she has to get her railway budget passed in Parliament tomorrow, she is present here with us. On behalf of the finance ministry, I must thank her for being here.”

Mamata showed no trace of the unhappiness over service tax against which she had railed in Parliament, days after Mukherjee’s budget imposed it on goods transported by rail.

However, a Trinamul leader present on the dais said Mamata was heard requesting Mukherjee to ask his partymen to ensure that seat sharing for the civic polls is done by consensus.

Mamata later waited for Mukherjee at the airport for an hour to fly together to Delhi in a special aircraft.Narayanan meeting

Pranab Mukherjee today paid an unscheduled visit to governor M.K. Narayanan, who updated the finance minister on the state’s security system to tackle Maoists.


The Telegraph