‘Cold reception’ to Mamata at Nehru meet may be lost opportunity for Cong

While Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Anand Sharma, Mukul Wasnik and Mani Shankar Aiyar were seated on the dais along with international guests, Mamata sat with JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Sitaram Yechury of the Left.

Sources close to the Trinamool Congress chief said the perfunctory exchange of courtesies with the Congress president left Mamata feeling neglected. She was never invited to the dais to speak nor did Sonia acknowledge her presence — or for that matter any of the other political leaders — in her speech at the conference. Mamata left the venue without having lunch — she drove straight to the residence of veteran BJP leader L K Advani, and despite being in the city on the second day of the conference, chose to gave it a miss.

The conference, she told her aides later, was a lost opportunity in making the political statement against communalism that it could have become had leaders from diverse political parties congregated on the same stage making it a powerful visual of resistance to the right-wing juggernaut. “She had changed her plans to be a part of this conference. She was originally slated to come to Delhi on November 17 to invite the President for the investors’ conference in Kolkata but chose to come a day ahead. There were chances of a meeting with the Congress president separately but the lukewarm reception at the conference has at least for now put an end to all that,” said a Trinamool insider.

Mamata nevertheless has made repeated statements after the conference about the need to put together a political front against communalism and the importance of the Congress as and when such an initiative is undertaken. She had even maintained that she would work with the Left nationally to oppose the BJP despite ideological differences in West Bengal. Those close to her though believe that the bitterness with Congress is a transient phase. As Mamata herself said on Tuesday during an informal interaction with journalists: “In politics there is nothing like an opportunity permanently lost.”