There is little doubt that the BJP is gingerly leading the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee up the garden path of cooperation, dangling before it the carrot of removing the UPA-II Government from the seat of power. On Sunday, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi revealed that Mamata had “approached” the Lok Sabha leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj for support for a no-confidence motion to be sponsored by the Trinamool Congress.

No-confidence motion

While Joshi said that his party and the NDA would formulate their stand on the issue shortly — the Winter session of Parliament begins on Thursday — he was quick off the mark with the forthright comment that Mamata “was right in her stand against FDI” and that the BJP had also opposed the Government “on the same issue”. However, the calculations ahead would be difficult because, after all, the no-confidence motion is first and last “a numbers game”.

As Joshi put it, “We have to carefully see whether it is potent enough to topple the Government. If the Government topples, there will be early parliamentary elections. If the motion is moved, it cannot be brought (again) in the next six months”.

As far as the Trinamool Congress is concerned, at the time of writing, it has neither confirmed nor denied the move to get BJP support.

As a first response, the erstwhile Railway Minister, Mukul Roy, said that “there is no harm in one political party speaking to another. The Chief Minister has made it clear it is the anti-people policies of UPA-II for which we will move this motion. . . .

To that end, we welcome all political parties who are also vocal against such issues, to support our move”. In other words, what is crystal clear from Roy’s statement is that the BJP in not an untouchable to the Trinamool Congress on certain political issues.

‘unfortunate’ development

It will be of interest to watch the reaction of the minority community in West Bengal to the Trinamool stand vis-a-vis the BJP, which will be of critical importance to Mamata because of the weightage she attaches to the community’s electoral behaviour. After all, it was with the help of this community that she was able to deliver the coup de grace to the Left in West Bengal in the 2011 Assembly polls. Already, if one is to go by newspaper reports, the signs are ominous.

The Tipu Sultan Mosque Shahi Imam, Noor-ur-Rahman Barkati, who has been one of Mamata’s backers, is reported to have said that the development was “unfortunate” and that it would be “unbearable for the community if Mamata Banerjee knocks on the BJP’s door”.

The Left must be praying hard that the BJP responds favourably to the reported Trinamool move for, irrespective of what the fate of such a no-confidence motion is in the Lok Sabha, in West Bengal, the political spin-off will be greatly in favour of the Leftists through its impact on the minority community vote.

Since Mamata is keenly aware that her clout in the national political scene is wholly dependent on her electoral performance in the State, one should not be surprised if Mamata plays down her reported plea for BJP support but keeps the door open for saffron support to the motion of its own volition.

It would seem that with her growing distance from the UPA-II Government, Mamata is slowly getting herself into an intractable mess on the national political scene. As far as the minority community vote in West Bengal is concerned, only a third front is likely to save her.

But the chances of such a front forming and sticking together are, to say the least, remote as of now.

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