With Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accepting the invitation of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to attend the 125th birth anniversary of the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru to be held at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, voices, in both the TMC and Congress, supporting a grand alliance with a view of fighting the BJP have once again become active in the state. "The Chief minister has accepted the invitation of the Congress President and she is going to attend the ceremony on the first day, November 17,'" Derek O'Brien, Trinamool Congress spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member told Indian Express. Mamata is going to Delhi on November 16 and will be back to Kolkata on November 19. In between, apart from meeting President Pranab Mukherjee, she will be attending a meeting of industrialists at the West Bengal pavillion of India International Trade Fair. In fact it was Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Sonia Gandhi, who called Mamata and conveyed the request of the Congress President to the TMC chief. Today at Zero Hour in the state assembly, former Pradesh Congress President Manas Ranjan Bhuina, while welcoming the move of the chief minister, said the time had come when all secular, democratic and nationalist forces should unite to fight the BJP. "Jawaharlal Nehru was the architect of a secular, democratic India and it is now under threat from divisive, communal forces. I believe it is time all democratic, secular and nationalist forces should be united under the Indian National Congress to fight the menace of the BJP," Bhuina said. Later speaking to Indian Express on a possible alliance between the congress and the TMC, Bhuina said he did not have the authority to speak on that subject. "It is the sole prerogative of our party president Sonia Gandhi to say anything about this,'' the former minister in the Mamata Banerjee government told Indian Express. While Congress Legislature Party leader Mohammad Sohrab said: "It is good that Mamata is going to attend the birth anniversary of such a person who all through his life fought for secularism and nationalism. And those who believe in his ideals should come under one umbrella to fight the BJP." Trinamool Congress leaders this reporter spoke to did not like to comment on a subject that is being handled directly by Mamata. One MP on condition of anonymity said: "There can be an alliance but this will lead to a vertical split in the Bengal Congress unit. For leaders like PCC president Adhir Ranjan Choudhury or Somen Mitra, or Deepa Das Munshi an alliance with TMC is totally unacceptable." It is interesting to note that Mamata, who observes the birth or death centenary of so many stalwarts and luminaries at the state secretariat and the state assembly, never observed the birth or death anniversary of Indira Gandhi. Meanwhile the CPI(M) does not want to buy the theory of such an alliance. "The chief minister will not remain in the assembly when a no-confidence motion against her government will be discussed. We think she should stay in Delhi. We don't know whom she is going to meet, Sonia Gandhi or Rajnath Singh. Stories are being floated about such alliances (between Congress and TMC) but we wonder whether they are true or not," Suryakanta Mishra, leader of the opposition in the state assembly and CPIM Politburo member, told Indian Express.
