Kolkata: A combative Trinamool Congress on Monday night sent a terse message to Congress saying it was ‘mentally prepared to quit’ UPA government and should not be given any ‘indirect threat’.
“Trinamool ministers are mentally prepared to resign from the central government if the Congress thinks we are a burden or if Mamata Banerjee instructs them to do so. We will not stay by force. We should not be given any indirect threat,” leader of the TMC parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay told reporters here.
“If Trinamool Congress leaves the UPA on its own, it will give a wrong message to the people that it wanted to topple the UPA government,” a party leader quoted Banerjee as having said at a crucial meeting of party MPs and MLAs shortly after APJ Abdul Kalam announced his decision to opt out of the presidential race.
Briefing newsmen about the nearly two-hour meeting, leader of the parliamentary party, Bandopadhyay, however, said reports that party MPs and union ministers submitting letters of resignation to the party supremo were ‘totally baseless’.
“Congress is dependent on other parties, including Trinamool Congress, which is the second largest constituent of UPA,” he said.
“We may have our opinions which we can certainly place before the government. We as a major ally should not be taken for granted,” Bandopadhyay said in apparent response to Congress leader Digivijay Singh’s remarks that Mamata was an ‘immature’ and ‘erratic’ leader and suggested there is a ‘limit’ to the patience of Congress. (PTI)
