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Kesri furious with Mamata's demand

Stormy petrel Mamata Banerjee's demand -- that Congress president Sitaram Kesri apologise for treating her 'shabbily' -- appears to have considerably irked the party leadership.

Banerjee, who floated the Trinamul Congress following differences with Kesri on policy matters, recently demanded an apology from the party chief after he threatened disciplinary action against her.

Taking serious exception to Kesri's statement, she threatened to put up candidates against all official Congress candidates in the Lok Sabha election.

An alarmed Congress leadership quickly despatched party general secretary Oscar Fernandes to Calcutta in order to persuade Banerjee not to take any step which would have disastrous consequences for the party.

However, according to a West Bengal Congress MP, she categorically told Fernandes that Kesri would have to apologise for treating her 'shabbily' in the last few months.

This is the second time that she is raising a banner of revolt against the party leadership. In August, when the Congress held its plenary session at Calcutta, the MP floated her Trinamul Congress and staged a massive rally which attracted a 400,000-strong gathering. This sent shudders down the local Congress unit's spine, especially West Bengal party chief Somen Mitra.

Thereafter, she had given scores of media interviews, underscoring her contempt for Kesri's style of handling party affairs.

Further triggering the party leadership's apprehensions was her statement that she did not consider the BJP an 'untouchable'. In her latest outburst against Kesri, she reportedly said that she would form an alliance with the BJP in West Bengal in order to win all the Lok Sabha seats in the state.

This caused alarm in the Congress leadership, forcing it to drop disciplinary proceedings against her and instead extend an olive branch.

In his overtures, Kesri has offered her an important post in the party's West Bengal unit besides important posts for her supporters in the local unit.

Banerjee, however, is no mood to relent. She has told her supporters that she ''would not only make Kesri eat his own words but also make a spectacle of him for trying to vilify our newly-floated outfit''.

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