Nehru unites old UPA allies

New Delhi: On her three-day visit to Delhi on a Congress invitation to attend the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Jawaharlal Nehru, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met a number of political leaders, triggering speculation about future tie-ups.

The Trinamool Congress chief, however, played down the possibility of getting together with former ally Congress. “The Congress is celebrating the 125th birth anniversary of Nehru. They have invited so many political parties, they invited me also,” she told NDTV.
 

Banerjee, who is fighting a BJP surge in her state, however, met veteran BJP leader L K Advani at his home as well.
 
“I don’t believe in communal politics. It (communalism) is the number one enemy,” she later said. “We have seen (communal clashes) in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. Even in Bengal, they are trying (to trigger clashes). Every day, they are trying.”
 
BJP said Banerjee’s sharing dais with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury was a mark of her desperation to save her “fast depleting political space in Bengal”.
 
“All these political parties coming together under the garb of 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, is nothing but a desperate attempt to save their own political space and identity,” BJP national secretary Siddarth Nath told news agency Press Trust of India.
 
But no “vested political alliance” can stop the BJP from making Bengal free from Trinamool “misrule” by 2016, he added.