The Hindu : Quitting NDA was a blunder, says Mamata

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 13, 2003

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National

Quitting NDA was a blunder, says Mamata

Kolkata June 12. The Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, today admitted it was a ``blunder'' on her part to have left NDA after the Tehelka episode in 2001 and forge an alliance with the Congress to fight Assembly polls in West Bengal.

Sharing a common platform with the State BJP leaders, Ms. Banerjee, a former Railway Minister, told a rally here ``It was a blunder to have joined hands with the Congress for four months before the West Bengal Assembly elections. We have rectified our mistake which will not be repeated again.''

Referring to her party's alliance with the Congress before the polls in West Bengal to dislodge the Left Front, she had ``believed that the Congress would be sincere in fighting the Marxists but it was a mistaken judgement.''

The Congress was not interested in taking on CPI(M) seriously, said Ms. Banerjee who narrowly missed a possible berth in Vajpayee Ministry in the May 24 reshuffle when she stayed away in protest against the move to induct party colleague Sudip Bandopadhyay `without consulting her'.

Smarting under her party's defeat in recent by-elections to Nabadwip Lok Sabha seat and its failure to ensure even a token presence of the BJP at the by-poll at Vidysagar Assembly seat in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress chief said the poll debacle would have no adverse impact on her party's ties with the saffron party.

``The alliance will continue to grow in strength and will remain intact.

``The poll results will have no adverse impact on the ties between the two parties,'' she said. — PTI

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