Trinamul strategy will help Left, rues Congress

kolkata: the trinamul congress decision to cast all 60 votes in fa-vour of its rajya sabha candidate dinesh trivedi will work in favour of the left front, feels the congress camp. “instead of wasting the excess food, they should give it away to the underfed,� congress leader abdul mannan said in a caustic manner on friday. if trinamul gave its 11 votes to the congress, then the party would have been in a position to defeat a left front candidate during the rajya sabha elections, mannan explained.mannan was reiterating pcc president pranab mukherjee’s appeal for the excess trinamul votes. with candidate needs 49 votes to register a win in rajya sabha, the trinamul has 11 extra votes. “if trinamul does not get these 11 votes, they do not stand to lose but the left front nomi-nee stands to gain,� mannan said. the position taken by the congress indicates that the party has decided to go all out to project the trinamul as a factor coming in the way of anti-left unity. this has been an allegation directed against the pcc. the congress camp is hoping that such a position will create confusion among the trinamul mlas, forcing mamata banerjee to react. mannan added that the congress was not at all interested to engineer de-fection in the trinamul rank and file. “in case they cast all their votes in favour of dinesh trivedi, they will have to explain what made them de-sist from taking an anti-left stand,� mannan said. congress leaders suggested that the virtual whip issued by the trinamul high command over its mlas show that mamata banerjee was not confi-dent of keeping its flock together. the party supremo, is expected to reach kolkata on saturday to take stock of the prevailing situation. on friday, the trinamul mlas were seen carrying out dummy runs of the rajya sabha voting, using dummy ballot papers.