Buddha's praise for Pranab may irk Mamata

NEW DELHI: This will not be music to Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s ears. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee came in for praise on Friday from West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who said he had been very “helpful” in finalising the plan allocation for the state.

“I had gone to meet him to thank him for helping us finalise the budget. He has really helped us,” Mr Bhattacharjee said at a press conference responding to questions about his meeting with the finance minister on Thursday night.

The praise for her ally from her political rival in the state may irk the Trinamool Congress, which gets uncomfortable with any bonhomie between the Left and the Congress, particularly with municipal elections in West Bengal coming up in May.

Meanwhile, the Left is keeping a close watch on the relations between the Congress and Tri-namool Congress in the state. Faced with repeated debacles in recent elections in the state, where the Left Front has been in power for over three decades, the CPM has been worried about the outcome of the assembly elections next year.

To a question about a perception that the CPM had conceded defeat to the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine in the state, Mr Bhattacharjee said “I don’t think so. That is one opinion. There is also another section which is of the opinion that the Left cannot be defeated by these parties,” he said.

In a sign that his government was trying to regain its foothold in the state by reaching out to the common man, the chief minister stressed on allocations for the social sector, including agriculture, health, education and rural development. The state’s record of delivering some of the Left’s pet schemes -- NREGA, PDS and minorityoriented ones-- had not been very impressive.