Almost six months after staying away from National Democratic Alliance meetings in protest against the bifurcation of the Eastern Railways, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Friday decided to end the ‘boycott'.
"I am leaving for Delhi to attend the NDA meeting [in New Delhi] on February 16," Banerjee said in Kolkata.
At the last working committee meeting of the Trinamool on August 13, 2002, it was decided that unless the bifurcation decision was reversed the party would not be part of the NDA.
Trinamool Member of Parliament Sudip Bandopadhyay, who fell out with the party chief, said, "Mamata's joining the meeting of NDA is a right decision to build bridges with the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] and to avoid any scope for misgivings."
Bandopadhyay, who was removed from the post of chief whip in the Lok Sabha for holding meetings with BJP leaders, said he had always insisted that the Trinamool could not afford to severe ties with the NDA.