Top Trinamool leaders met in Kolkata to firm up the party's strategy for the crucial session that begins next week and are set to raise tough questions and several issues like price rise. Trinamool leader Sudip Bandhopadhyay said today that the party would raise Bengal-related issues in the Lok Sabha. "The debt of the state is Rs 22,000 crore... Bengal needs special attention," Mr Bandhopadhyay said after the meeting. Mamata Banerjee has repeatedly sought a special package from the Centre for West Bengal, where she stormed to power two years ago.
Though the Trinamool partners the Congress in the UPA, it has given not an inch on matters like foreign direct investment in retail and or hike in fuel prices. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has used her party's status as the second largest group of MPs in a government with a razor-thin majority, to push through her populist agenda, often derailing reform measures.
The Trinamool has also been at odds with the UPA stand on key central legislation like the Lokpal Bill and a proposed land Bill; Mamata Banerjee stalled the Teesta river accord between India and Bangladesh objecting to the amount of water it gave Bangladesh. And she has now joined hands and is indeed at the forefront of opposition mounted by several Chief Ministers to the Centre's proposed National Counter Terrorism Centre, saying it goes against the basic tenets of federalism.
The Trinamool has 20 MPs in the Lok Sabha that the UPA badly needs to make up its majority in the House. It also has six MPs in the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress-led UPA does not enjoy a majority. The Assembly election results in far-off Uttar Pradesh would have emboldened the party further. The Congress's best laid plans to acquire another ally through a quid pro quo with the Samajwadi Party at the Centre and in UP came a cropper when the SP managed a comfortable majority in the state. If the Congress could have ensured that the SP needed its help to form a government in UP, it could have had the SP's overt support at the Centre in return to offset the sheer clout of numbers that Ms Banerjee wields in the coalition and uses without compunction. Right now the SP, with its 22 MPs, provides issue-based support to the Congress.
Mr Bandhopadhyay refused to comment on how the recent elections would affect coalition equations. But for the UPA, those equations could come into play come as early as next week, when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presents his General Budget for the year. Conventionally, this would be one year when the Centre could have pushed through some tough measures for fiscal reform. But Mr Mukherjee needs at least the full support of all the UPA allies for that, which might be a big ask right now with the Trinamool already flexing its muscle.
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