Mamata to stick to NDA

Despite a wipe-out of her party in the LS polls, Mamata Banerjee says she would continue to remain in NDA.

Despite a virtual wipe-out of her party in the Lok Sabha polls, Nationalist Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Thursday asserted NTC, which fought the elections in alliance with BJP, would continue to remain in NDA.

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''Our commitment is to remain in the NDA irrespective of whether it is passing through good or bad times. Our commitment is to the NDA manifesto. We accept the verdict of the people and we'll sit in the opposition,'' Banerjee said after she became the lone sitting party MP so far to make it to the 14th Lok Sabha.

The NTC leader claimed the morale of her party workers had not gone down following the electoral reverses and vowed to continue her fight against the 'misrule' of Left Front as well as against the Congress.

Despite Banerjee's assertion, a NTC leader did not rule out the possibility of exodus of workers to a resurgent Congress, which emerged as the single largest anti-Left party in the state in terms of number of seats.

''The possibility of such an exodus is there. There are self-seekers in the party. They may decide to pitch their lot with the Congress because of the latter's good showing both in the state as also at the national level,'' he said.

The Trinamool-BJP combine bagged ten seats in the 1999 elections, with the former getting eight and the latter two.

However, both sitting BJP MPs - union ministers Tapan Sikdar and Satyabrata Mukherjee - were humbled at the hustingshustings this time around.