New Delhi:
Of the many people that flew in from Kolkata to attend President Pranab Mukherjee's swearing in ceremony, was West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She came by private jet, sent to her by her host, Mr Mukherjee, and flew back to Kolkata on the same plane.
The Congress reportedly sponsored the private jet ride.
This was the only event that Ms Banerjee deigned to attend. She was not there when all other UPA allies met to endorse the candidacy of Mr Mukherjee for the presidential elections last month. She did not meet him when he visited Kolkata to campaign. The Trinamool Congress chief was sulking then, virulently opposed to Mr Mukherjee's candidacy.
Ms Banerjee chose not to reveal till the last minute who her party would vote for, after her attempt to get former president APJ Abdul Kalam to contest again came to naught. Politically isolated, she only announced three days before the election that she would vote for Mr Mukherjee after all, but only because she did not want to waste the 50,000 votes that her party has in the electoral college which votes for the President. She was backing him reluctantly, she said, though she wished him success and good health.
But on Sunday, after Mr Mukherjee was declared elected by a huge margin, Ms Banerjee called to congratulate him. He invited her for the swearing in ceremony and she accepted. Today, she invited the President to West Bengal, he close aide Mukul Roy said.
For many years now, Ms Banerjee and Mr Mukherjee, both tall Bengal leaders, have not shared the best of relations. In recent months, Mr Mukherjee, as Finance Minister, had refused to give in to Ms Banerjee's demand for a financial bailout for her debt-ridden state. That angered Ms Banerjee.
However, Mr Mukherjee has been known to reminisce how a young Mamata Banerjee was first spotted in the Bengal Congress as a worker with untiring zeal and the single-minded ambition to decimate the CPM; he readily gave her full marks for her ambition and political ability.