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Banerjee promptly reciprocated the gesture by calling Sonia Gandhi pro-people and praising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his initiative to check price rise.
The state Congress leadership also accepted her proposal of setting up a joint committee of the two parties to devise strategy of putting up a joint fight in civic polls and select candidates.
Only on Saturday, Union Finance Minister and state Congress chief Pranab Mukherjee had held a meeting with district unit presidents and had said candidates for civic polls would be selected on their inputs.
Elated at the Union Cabinet’s decision of not going by the Kirit Parikh Committee’s recommendations on the price rise, Banerjee today hailed Sonia Gandhi as a “pro-people leader”.
“Both Soniaji and the Prime Minister Manmohanji know our stand on the issue of rise of LPG and other petro-prices. It is good they have not increased the prices,” she said after holding talks with senior state Congress leaders Subrata Mukherjee, Pradip Bhattacharjee and Manas Bhuniya at her residence.
“We (the Trinamool and AICC leadership) have the best of relations and we don’t try to develop a crack in this,” she said when asked why she chose to skip a Cabinet committee meeting in Delhi on Thursday.
The Gorkhaland issue is also said to have figured in the discussion between the Congress leaders and Banerjee.
After the meeting, Mamata told reporters that the Trinamool Congress and Congress leaders will meet Governor M K Narayanan jointly to highlight the misrule of the CPM-led government in the state.
On the Gorkhaland issue, Banerjee said both Congress and her party were opposed to any split in West Bengal. “We don’t want West Bengal to be split for giving a separate state to the Gorkhas, but we all want development of the Hills. Our opinion was not sought by the UPA, but if asked, we are ready to express our views. We want development of the tribals also,” the Trinamool chief said.
“It was a cordial meeting and we share a common stand on the Gorkhaland issue and violence in the state,” said Bhattacharjee. Regarding the projected mayoral candidate in the upcoming Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, Bhattacharjee said, “We are yet to work it out.”
Banerjee also invited Bhuniya to attend the two-day meeting of the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad to be held at Tamluk from February 13. “She invited all of us to attend the function at Tamluk. She has also urged all the three Congress leaders to join all the programmes of the Railways, which will be organised in future,” said Bhattacharjee.
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Harming public pockets and inflation may be two reasons for not increasing LPG price which is at the cost of fiscal and OMC health. Increasing LPG cost and reducing LPG subsidy is in interest of public and thus deflationary as much cheaper fuel than subsidized LPG are available in form of induction cooking and solar cooking. This step can full fill four gains.