Congress urges restraint as spat with Mamata worsens

Amid escalating tensions with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, the Congress on Saturday said it was open to the idea of a United Progressive Alliance coordination committee to bring greater cohesion within the alliance.

At the same time, it dismissed suggestions that the Congress was scared of Trinamool entering the poll fray in Uttar Pradesh or any other state.

To a question on whether the Congress feels the need of setting up a UPA coordination committee in the present circumstances, party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, "We are not ruling it out but we are also not ruling it in. What you are saying is certainly open."

He said that the idea has to be first thought over by the Congress president and the party high command as well as by its allies.

On a day when the war of words between the West Bengal unit of the Congress and Banerjee's party worsened, Singhvi advised restraint on the issue to all stakeholders and downplayed the differences.

"These things do happen in a coalition arrangement. We urge all the concerned stakeholders not to react over-aggressively and in a provocative atmosphere," he said.

Maintaining that disagreements are part of the coalition arrangement, the Congress spokesperson stressed, "But these things are eventually sorted out as long as the allies consider the coalition valuable."

Singhvi alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party was fishing in troubled waters through its overtures to the Trinamool Congress.

"The BJP has been unsuccessfully trying to act Narad Muni," he said, adding that the opposition party's "desperation for power" was leading it to resort to such tactics.

The UPA does not have a formal coordination committee since it came to power in May 2004.
 
Reacting to Banerjee's contention that the Congress was worried because TC had decided to contest the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Manipur, Singhvi said, "There is no question of a 125-year-old (party) to be scared of anyone in Delhi or in any other state. We are never afraid of any political challenge."

Asked whether the party's central leadership will ask its state unit not to fan the controversy, he said, "Each of our state units are fully capable of deciding in the spirit of what we have said."