Mamata?s choice of PM rally venue miffs partymen

Objections from two of her candidates and several of her party leaders notwithstanding, Mamata has fixed her own constituency as the venue of Atal's only poll campaign in the state.

Mamata Banerjee’s wish is the law in the Trinamool Congress. So, objections from two of her candidates from Kolkata and several of her party leaders notwithstanding, Banerjee has fixed her own constituency as the venue of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s only election campaign in the state. Vajpayee will address a public meeting at Deshapriya Park in Mamata’s South Kolkata constituency next Tuesday.

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According to Trinamool insiders, Subrata Mukherjee and Ajit Panja had “advised” Mamata to fix the more central and strategic Shahid Minar as the venue of Vajpayee’s meeting. Several senior Trinamool leaders had also argued that this would benefit all party candidates from the city.

Mamata, however, reportedly argued that Deshapriya Park was a “lucky” venue and that a series of big names such as Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had addressed meetings there in the past, all of which had yielded rich political dividend. She did not, however, care to explain why this made the ground lucky since a far greater number of top Congress leaders had also spoken at Shahid Minar in the past.

Sources also said that several prominent BJP leaders also favoured Shahid Minar as the venue of the Prime Minister’s only election meeting in the state. But they did not put their foot down and gave in to Mamata’s demand since the Trinamool was after all the ‘senior’ partner in the alliance here. State BJP chief Tathagata Ray said his party had little say in the final selection of the venue. “It is the decision of the Trinamool Congress and the Prime Minister’s Office. We have nothing to do with it.”

Transfer plea to EC

The Trinamool Congress has decided to urge the CEC to remove several district magistrates and superintendents of police in Bengal for the period till the polls to ensure “neutrality” of the administration during the election process. Mamata has also alleged that the CPI(M) had unleashed a reign of terror prior to the polls and was using the police and the administration to arrest Trinamool activists by the dozen.