Mamata skips Sonia meet, sticks to JPC demand

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee absented herself from her party's parliamentary party delegation meeting with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday, and stuck to her stand that the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum scam was appropriate.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee absented herself from her party's parliamentary party delegation meeting with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday, and stuck to her stand that the Opposition demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum scam was appropriate.

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"But the party will go along with the Congress position in the matter," a senior Trinamool leader said.

In the charged political climate before the assembly polls in Bengal, Banerjee's predicament is that she cannot be perceived as supporting moves to block an impartial parliamentary probe into the scam.

At Gandhi's birthday function on Thursday, Banerjee is expected to explain her political position to the party chief.

Banerjee is understood to have conveyed her unwillingness to oppose the JPC demand to parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, when the latter called on her at Rail Bhawan on Wednesday.

Simultaneously, Banerjee has stepped up demands for withdrawal of central forces from election-bound Bengal.

Led by Sudip Bandopadhyaya, a Trinamool delegation on Wednesday submitted a six-volume report to Gandhi about how the Left government was "misusing" the central forces to unleash atrocities on innocent people and party workers.

"Banerjee's own security is at threat and the voice of parliamentary democracy is sought to be throttled by the incumbent Left Front government in West Bengal. On earlier occasions, we have conveyed our concerns in the matter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram," Bandopadhyaya said.

By misusing central forces, the Bengal government was attempting to regain lost political ground, he said.