Congress-Trinamool Deadlock Over Speaker Election Continues

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerje's Trinamool Congress has remained the shaky spot in the united Opposition front over the election of the Speaker. The party, which started the day with the complaint that they were not consulted about fielding a candidate, ended it by expressing its disapproval of the Congress decision and keeping the alliance on tenterhooks over its support to K Suresh.

At a meeting of the INDIA bloc at Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge's house on Tuesday evening, Trinamool expressed its reservation about the decision to go for a contest, sources said. On whether it would support K Suresh against the BJP candidate Om Birla, the party said they would convey their decision by 9 am today.

Sources said the party had argued that some of their members could not take oath and some Opposition MPs are in jail. So a contest at this point will only put then NDA strength on display.

The Congress's eleventh-hour snap decision to field Mr Suresh and force a contest, had got it on the wrong side of Trinamool, which called the move "unilateral".

Several hours and explanations later, the party thawed and attended the Opposition meet -- only to express its reservations.

Ahead of the meeting, Congress's Rahul Gandhi had spoken to Trinamool's second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee and Mr Suresh had called the party to seek support.

The Congress said there was no time for consultation as they had decided to field a candidate just 10 minutes before the deadline. The part was irked by the BJP refusal to give the Opposition the post of the Deputy Speaker, or admit their claim to it.

This morning, the government, while seeking consensus for Om Birla, made it clear that they were not considering a Deputy Speaker post for now.

Congress's Rahul Gandhi, who has accepted the responsibility of being the Leader of the Opposition, said, "Rajnath Singh called Mallikarjun Kharge and asked him to extend support... entire Opposition said we will support but convention is Deputy Speaker should be from our side. Rajnath Singh said he would call back... but he has not yet...PM is asking for cooperation but our leader is getting insulted."

The Trinamool -- which never had the best of relations with the Congress -- had put its membership from the INDIA bloc on hold in the run-up to the polls after a dispute over seat sharing in Bengal.

After the election, they came back to the fold and today was the first day after the results, when unease crept into the alliance.

It was not Trinamool alone. Sources said after the meeting that alliance leaders had underscored that they were not informed about Sonia Gandhi's decision to appoint her son Rahul Gandhi as the Leader of the Opposition.