Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who had put her membership of the INDIA bloc on hold after a tiff with the Congress on seat-sharing, appears to have thawed somewhat. The Chief Minister today said she would "provide outside support" to the Opposition bloc should it come to power after the general election.
"We will provide leadership to the INDIA alliance, and help them in every way from outside. We will form a government so that in Bengal our mothers and sisters never face a problem and those who work in the 100-days-job scheme, do not face problems," she said today.
But she made her definition of the INDIA bloc clear -- it does not include the CPM or the Bengal Congress, led by arch-rival and senior Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury.
"You must know this that the INDIA Alliance -- don't count the Bengal Congress and CPI(M), those two are not with us. Those two are with the BJP. I am talking about Delhi," she said.
Mr Banerjee's partial capitulation comes as the election to 70 per cent seats of the country got completed. Three rounds of election still remain -- voting will be held in Bengal in every phase.
The BJP, having saturated the Hindi heartland, is hoping to make up the deficit in 370 seats from the south and Bengal.
As the election drags on in peak summer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been regular visitors to the state, eye on its 42 Lok Sabha seats.
