Dada in and Didi out: Bluff called,she puts up brave face

"The game is not over yet, said Mamata Banerjee

8220;The game is not over yet, said Trinamool Congress TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,breaking her silence after her arrival in Kolkata from Delhi today. Whatever I have to say I will say tomorrow.

It was 9 pm,and as she left Writers Buildings,it was clear that for the first time since her historic win over the CPM in Bengal,after getting her way again and again with a weak UPA be it on FDI or NCTC or Dinesh Trivedi or the pension Bill Mamata had over-reached and stumbled.

How that will play out in the days to come isnt clear. The state unit of the Congress wants out of its alliance with the TMC but the central leadership is in no hurry. It has trumped her on Pranab Mukherjee,it doesnt want to rub it in.

Mamata,however,put up a brave face,although not as defiant as it was the last 48 hours. Asked if she had been betrayed by Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party who now backed Mukherjee,she said: I do not say so. He is a political leader. Political leaders have compulsions. But those who are thinking the game is over,it is not so.

She declined to comment on the Delhi drama in which she was the lead actor. She tried to look cheerful: I thank the people for electing Trinamool Congress candidates in the bypolls, she said. What she didnt say was that her party had retained the two assembly constituencies of Bankura and Daspur but with a sharp dip in vote share as much as 4 per cent in Bankura,3 per cent in Daspur.

As evening rolled on,most Ministers had left their offices. No one was willing to comment on anything. For over two hours uninterrupted,she was closeted with Finance Minister Amit Mitra,Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and Urban Development Minister Firad Hakim in her chambers. Sources said that Mamata is said to have remarked: The Congress trapped me.

Outside the Secretariat,the first rumblings of dissent within her party were heard this evening. A veteran TMC MP,speaking on the condition that he not be named,said that Mamata had been strategically defeated. He echoed the view of many of his colleagues when he said: She went to Delhi without doing any homework. She made everything personal,her wish to defeat Pranab and defy the Congress without looking at reality.

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Others in the party said that it was unfortunate that they were hitting headlines for being confrontationist rather than for governance in the state. The number of those disgruntled is growing within the party8230;If any one wants to plough the land with goats instead of cows,this can be the only consequence, the MP said.

The lone SUCI MP,Tarun Mondal,who jointly fought the Lok Sabha polls of 2009 with the TMC said that the party was opposed to the TMC joining UPA II. As far as the Presidential poll is concerned,no one consulted us, he said.