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Mamata's progress pushes Vajpayee, Sonia back

Our correspondent in New Delhi

Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's efforts to group breakaway Congress factions under the umbrella of the Progressive Alliance is giving jitters to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Vajpayee and Sonia are worried for different reasons. The prime minister fears that Mamata's growing clout among regional parties has made the PA a pressure group that could shake the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition at the Centre.

And Sonia is nervous as the PA's formation has virtually nipped in bud her plans to lure the party's breakaway factions under one fold to fight the BJP.

Not only did Mamata refuse to meet Sonia for any patch-up with the Congress in recent months, she has forced other smaller breakaway groups to give up any plans to rejoin the parent organisation. These include Uttar Pradesh Minister Naresh Aggarwal's Lok Tantrik Congress, Union Petroleum Minister Vazhapadi Ramamurthy's Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress, Manipur Chief Minister Nipamacha Singh's Manipur State Congress and Suresh Kalmadi's Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi.

"We have no plans to return to the Congress as we feel that the party under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi has not shown any remarkable improvement both in its attitude as well as in policies," Trinamul leader Sudip Bandopadhyay told Rediff On The NeT.

He said the splinter Congress groups have now "stabilised in our respective regional areas." "Therefore, there is no need for us to rejoin the Congress party," Bandopadhyay added.

"As a collective group, we feel we can tackle the regional issues better rather than by being in the Congress," he said.

But he added that the coming together of the regional leaders under the Progressive Alliance "is not going to be a threat to the Vajpayee government."

Though the PA leaders have decided to remain friends with the BJP-led coalition, many believe Mamata's strategy is to ensure that their continued support to the government will be at the cost of more bargaining power.

"The government at the Centre cannot ignore the regional allies who are coming together under Mamata's leadership because we are adding up more members of Parliament in our list of supporters," Aslam Sher Khan, former Congress minister who is now an active organiser of the Progressive Alliance, told Rediff On The NeT.

Khan, who joined the BJP during the general elections last year, quit the party last month in protest against the rough deal the BJP leadership meted out to him. "I have learned hard lessons both from the Congress and the BJP. Leaders like me have been ignored by the Congress and BJP because I am a Muslim," he said.

Thus, with Khan's active participation, last week, Progressive Alliance leaders met in Pune. It was a show of solidarity to celebrate the first anniversary of one of their constituents, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi of former Union minister and ex-Congress leader Suresh Kalmadi.

On March 20, all the Progressive Alliance partners will assemble for a grand rally organised by the Loktantrik Congress in Lucknow. In fact, Mamata has skipped her Calcutta schedule to attend the Lucknow rally.

Incidentally, Vajpayee is scheduled to visit Calcutta the same day.

From within the Vajpayee government, the Alliance leaders have the active support of two senior members: Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde and Urban Development Minister Ram Jethmalani.

Alliance sources said their parliamentary strength in the Lok Sabha at present is more than 15. "We would like to make it very clear to the BJP leadership that the Progressive Alliance has the numbers to bring down the Vajpayee government," one Alliance leader remarked.

"Prime Minister Vajpayee is wholly dependent on the Progressive Alliance, if our combined arithmetic in Parliament is taken into account," he added.

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