CALCUTTA, March 7: The Trinamul Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party may now be allies but their two chiefs, Mamata Banerjee and Tapan Sikdar, who is also the party's first-ever MP from the State, are not on speaking terms.Although Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani called Mamata from Delhi, congratulating her and seeking her support for a BJP-led government, she received no thank-you call from Sikdar. ``No, he never called me. But you have seen how he used my cutouts at Dum Dum,'' sulks Mamata at the ``ingratitude'' of the state BJP chief who mauled the CPM in the traditional Left bastion.``So what if Tapanda hasn't called her? I did,'' says Paras Datta, state BJP vice-president. Sikdar, however, has no excuses. ``The problem is she considers me her rival,'' he says.Such is the mutual dislike between the two that many here feel that Mamata isn't keen to see Sikdar becoming a Minister in a BJP-led government. If the BJP is to give a ministerial berth to someone from West Bengal, she would ratherlike Vishnu Kant Shastri, Rajya Sabha member and former president of the West Bengal BJP, to take that job.Mamata herself dismisses this, saying it is the BJP's internal matter. But she makes no secret of his dislike for Sikdar. ``It's because of him that we did not win the Midnapore seat. Also, we could have put up a candidate at Raigunj and won it Sikdar did not insist on the seat.''Both the BJP and the TC put up nominees in Midnapore. Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta won the seat with a margin of 2.75 lakh, but the BJP came second. Sikdar throws the charge back at Mamata, saying she had sought to put pressure on him through the BJP's central leadership. ``But I stuck to my guns,'' he says.``Mamata won't relent unless Tapan Sikdar publicly regrets his derogatory remarks against her,'' says Sudip Bandypadhyay, her close aide and winner of the Calcutta North-West constituency. This was another seat which the BJP claimed for itself during seat-sharing talks.The bitterness between Mamata andSikdar threatened to break the adjustment between the two parties at one stage. Sikdar repeatedly said he would not be cowed down by her ``bossism,'' while Mamata once snapped that she was ``ashamed'' to mention Sikdar's name.Those anxious to bridge the gap hit upon a novel idea to bring the two together on one platform. Sikdar released Mamata's latest book at a function at the Calcutta Press Club. But she did not turn up. ``It was done without my approval,'' Mamata says, adding that the idea had come not from the publisher, but from some others, including one journalist.The gap has to be bridged again and very soon, as the two parties prepare for their next round of battle in the May 31 panchayat polls. Both are anxious to spread their support base in the rural areas.That was why the TC declined the BJP's offer to join its government. Mamata's battle is for Writers' Buildings and though the Assembly polls are away in 2001, she has to keep her fighting, anti-establishment image to achieve thisgoal.But as the TC and the BJP prepare to take on the CPM, each will eye the other rather suspiciously and do everything to increase its own sphere of influence. In the 1993 panchayat polls, the BJP secured 2,332 gram panchayat and 121 panchayat samiti seats. It will definitely aim to substantially improve on that tally. Both Bandyopadhyay and Datta claim, however, that the desire of the workers of both parties to see the end of the Marxist rule would prove stronger than any ego hassles.
