Kolkata:
Pranab Mukherjee, the ruling UPA's candidate for President of India, is in home-ground Kolkata today to campaign and has said he is ready to talk to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee. When she is ready to talk to him, that is.
Mr Mukherjee said he would like the Trinamool Congress, which partners the Congress in the UPA at the Centre, to support him, but that he believed the party had not made up its mind yet. He put the ball firmly in Ms Banerjee's court, saying, "I am ready to talk to her as and when she is ready to talk to me. Since my candidature was announced, I have expressed my desire to have the support of the partner of the UPA Trinamool Congress. I understand they have not yet taken their decision. They will take their decision at an appropriate time."
Ms Banerjee, who is also the Chief Minister of West Bengal, is the one UPA ally still to support Mr Mukherjee, who noted that fact when he spoke to reporters today. She has not spelt out yet whose kitty her party's significant 4.3 per cent votes of the electoral college will go to - Mr Mukherjee or the NDA's candidate Purno Sangma.
Mr Mukherjee confirmed there was no meeting with Ms Banerjee on the cards today. He met MPs and MLAs of the CPM and Forward Bloc this morning; these are the two Left parties that are supporting his candidacy. At that meeting he reportedly said he would also write to UPA allies who are sitting on the fence to support him for the Presidential election to be held on July 19. But he evaded answering a direct question on that.
Right now, he said, he was visiting state after state to meet and thank those parties that had pledged support for his candidacy.
Ms Banerjee, who is not known to share the best personal equation with Mr Mukherjee, has steadfastly opposed his candidacy. A few weeks ago, she drew startled gasps when she embarrassed partner Congress by going public with a list of three names she proposed could be ideal candidates for President. Mr Mukherjee was not on that list, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was.
Ms Banerjee was supported at the time by the Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav, who then withdrew from that bit of political drama and duly voiced support for Mr Mukherjee. Ms Banerjee refused to capitulate, tried to prop former President APJ Abdul Kalam for President and then left for Kolkata in a huff.
She has not spoken on the matter since but relations between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, already strained, have been at break point since.
Mr Mukherjee's opponent, Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma - who is backed by the BJP-led NDA, without the Janata Dal (United), the AIADMK and the BJD - has already met Ms Banerjee and said he hopes to get her support.