Mamata Banerjee Latest news quits UPA Biography Images/Photos Pictures Profile Government Congress

Mamata Banerjee Latest news.Mamata Banerjee quits UPA.Mamata Banerjee Biography.Mamata Banerjee Images.Mamata Banerjee Photos.Mamata Banerjee Pictures.Mamata Banerjee Profile.Mamata Banerjee Government.Mamata Banerjee Congress.Mamata Banerjee Quits UPA.Mamata Banerjee Immediate Decision.

Mamata Banerjee Quits UPA....,

The Congress-led UPA government is in a minority and its immediate task is to ensure survival. It has been forced to scrounge for numbers by ally Mamata Banerjee, who announced yesterday that she was exiting the UPA government in protest against a menu of new reforms introduced last week. Congress president Sonia Gandhi is meeting top party leaders right now to take stock of the new crisis the government has been plunged into.
  
Congress sources say Mamata Banerjee's decision needs a political call as the new situation threatens the government. The Congress core group - which includes the PM, AK Antony, Ahmed Patel and P Chidambaram - has several points to ponder on as it meets at the PM's 7 Race Course Road residence. Two of Mamata Banerjee's ministers are headed to Delhi right now. As she announced her divorce with the UPA yesterday, Ms Banerjee seemed to leave some room for compromise - she said her six ministers will resign only on Friday. 

Mamata Banerjee 

Sources in the Congress say that party president Sonia Gandhi will try to negotiate that compromise by reasoning with the Manmohan Singh government. Mamata Banerjee wants the government to withdraw a diesel price hike and a restriction on the supply of subsidised cooking gas and wants a decision to open up India's huge retail sector to foreign super-chains like Wal-Mart rolled back.  Ms Banerjee described those decisions as "a disaster for the poor" and said her party had been shown minimal respect by the UPA. While there will be no reversal of the retail reforms, sources say, the government may agree to a partial rollback in diesel prices, along with increasing the cap on LPG cylinders from six to nine per year. Mamata Banerjee says she wants it increased to 24.

The Prime Minister has, according to sources, driven home the point that he is committed to the reforms needed to jumpstart the economy; he allegedly told senior ministers that their government "must stay the course" and that it has "an unfinished agenda" for the economy for which it will allow "like-minded people" to help. 

As a political party the Congress, sources say, is of the view that mid-term elections must be avoided as polls are costly. The party wants to now look for support from partners that can provide stability and help it complete its term. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh though said today that if push comes to shove, his party is ready to face early elections. "People do select the government for five years. If the government does not complete its tenure, then we are ready for mid-term polls," he said.

Mamata Banerjee is the Congress' biggest ally in the UPA with 19 MPs. The DMK, which follows close behind with 18 MPs, five of whom are ministers, is also now said to be dithering over its next step. Sources in the Southern party, which has 18 Lok Sabha MPs, say that the DMK has decided "not to embarrass the UPA" and that its course will not be affected by Ms Banerjee's pull-out last night. The party, will however, participate in a bandh called tomorrow to protest against the Centre's decisions last week. Sources said this morning that a section of the DMK wants to quit over these reforms, but that the party is hopeful that Sonia Gandhi will stage an intervention. 

Before it decided to implement 51% Foreign Direct Investment or FDI in retail, the government had calculated its political risks. Ms Banerjee has 19 Lok Sabha MPs. Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party, who provide external support to the UPA, have 22. Ms Mayawati and her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have another 21. So though the UPA is in a minority without the Trinamool Congress, it can be propped up by Mr Yadav and Ms Mayawati. 

With the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, the UPA would still have more than 300 MPs on its side. It needs 272 to stay in power. But the government will now be more vulnerable to demands from those partners, who are both opposed to FDI in retail.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, who landed in Delhi on Tuesday night and plans to meet with the Left and other parties to gauge their reaction to the UPA's new position, is already playing hard to get. "Don't take us for granted," warned his party's Ram Gopal Yadav after Ms Banerjee's announcement yesterday. Today Mulayam Singh Yadav said Samajwadi Party's Parliamentary Board will meet tomorrow to decide its future course of action. Mr Yadav is also taking part, along with the Left and the BJP, in a nationwide bandh or strike tomorrow against the Centre's new policies.   

The Congress is now said to be looking at Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party and some Independents as its best bet to keep it in a majority in the Lok Sabha. Sources in Mayawati's party say she will decide on her relationship with the UPA at a meeting of her party on October 9. The BSP has voiced demands very similar to Mamata Banerjee's - a rollback in diesel prices and on the new norms for LPG. It also wants the government to withdraw the decision on FDI in retail. But unlike Ms Banerjee or Mr Yadav, who are riding recent electoral successes and would not mind mid-term elections to extend their gains, Ms Mayawati is still smarting from her defeat in Uttar Pradesh this year and she will not want early polls since she is unlikely to make too many gains.

Mamata- The RebeL:

In the last quarter of a century, one state each from the East, North and South of the country has contributed a woman leader each to the centrestage of Indian politics. A Didi, a Behenji and an Amma.

The parties headed by these women have proved to be strange bedfellows as far as coalition politics is concerned. Women are from Venus and it was never easy to predict the turns the mercurial Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati or Jayalalitha would take when the alliance they were a part of was at a critical juncture. Even in the last few days, after announcing a long deadline of 72 hours, Mamata kept everyone guessing on her next step in case Delhi did not pay heed to her demands.

Mamata Banerjee Latest news

Only Mayawati has made her wish public to be the Prime Minister of the country. The other two, no doubt, are confident enough that they are ‘PM material’. Apart from this, the trio has many things in common. They are the single point power centres and sole star campaigners of their respective parties. They seldom allow voices of dissent within the party. In the case of Mayawati and Jayalalitha they are also the lone public voice of the party. Mamata at least allows people like Mukul Roy or Kunal Ghosh to explain the party position.

Maybe because of the polyester blended textile, one can never see Behenji in a crushed salwar - kameez. But for the bullet-proof shield she wears, Amma is one of the most well-dressed politicians in the country. She has a good sense of colour, if not of humour. In terms of articulation, Amma is one the best. Like Prakash Karat, Amma also is very particular about speaking in full sentences. Behenji’s hindi has its rustic charm. Accent is only one aspect, it is difficult to decipher Didi’s words.

Jayalalitha and Mayawati even while in opposition or as chief ministers, seldom walked on the streets of their respective states, for an election campaign or for leading an agitation. On the contrary, Mamata is always on the streets, when she was fighting the Left and now even while she is the chief minister. She is always in agitation mode.

All the three leaders love to dictate terms - within the party and within the coalition. Mamata came to the hot seat in Writers Building, literally fighting the Left.

These are times when chief ministers are working overnight to create an image for themselves as modern and sophisticated. It was a common joke in Kerala that the present chief minister Ommen Chandy would deliberately tear his shirt here and there and often forget to comb his hair - to create an impression of being simple. These days we see Chandy in well-starched,well-pressed shirts and hair well-combed.

The way Mamata carries herself in the crushed cotton saree speaks eloquently of the rebel in her. Though she can’t stand cartoons taking a dig at her, Mamata has an artist in her: she paints, writes poems and songs for children. The hawai chappal and the old Fiat on which she used to come to Parliament are symbols of the carefully maintained simplicity, to be identified as one of the masses.

Almost 15 months have passed and Mamata is yet to change the attire of a fighter to that of a ruler. Bengal was always a problem-rich state. The condition remains the same. Non-performanace of Mamata as an administrator is one more in its bouquet of problems. When she is always in the fighting mode, where is the time to sit down and think of the needs of the state?

With not much fight left in the Left who are in shambles in Bengal, Mamata has extended her fight to Delhi - with the Congress as her new adversary. Now she has decided to withdraw support to UPA 2. Fighting with Delhi is a culture Mamata has inherited from her arch enemies, the Left. If the UPA - Left alliance lasted for more than four years, the Congress - Mamata marriage was over in three and a half years. If the UPA 1 was unable to proceed with many reform-oriented legislations due to objections raised by the Left, UPA 2 went ahead with crucial decisions in terms of policy forcing Mamata withdraw support.

If Congress’ political managers during the UPA1 found it difficult to understand the plans of the Left, Mamata has proved an equally unpredictable and costly ally in the UPA2. What next for Mamata in Delhi? She is now saying the UPA will last for three to six months only. One has to wait for things to evolve, considering the fact that six months is too long a period in politics.

           = > = > LATEST UPDATES < = < =

Posted in: Latest News