Mamata Banerjee today hinted at her displeasure
over Congress putting up a candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections from
West Bengal noting that the party cannot win without the support of the
Left Front.
"Without Left Front support, they (Congress) cannot win. Let us watch," she told reporters here.
Banerjee said if there was an "understanding" between the Congress
and the Left, then it could happen for "bigger things". "This is not
good," she remarked.
Her comments came on a day when senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan
today filed his papers from Champdani in Hooghly district of West Bengal
giving rise to another bone of contention between the two allies.
Trinamool Congress has renominated union minister Mukul Roy and given tickets to three journalists.
A report from Kolkata quoted AICC leader R C Khuntia as ruling out the possibility of Mannan withdrawing his nomination.
Khuntia also said his party would neither indulge in horse trading nor take support from the Left Front.
On whether the Congress with 42 MLAs in the 294-member House would
have enough numbers to see its candidate through, Khuntia said, "West
Bengal has 26 per cent minority votes.
"Abdul Mannan has been nominated to give them representation. Those
who are secular-minded and those who want him to go to the Rajya Sabha
will surely vote for him. In the Rajya Sabha elections, there are second
and third preference votes," he said.
Singh said efforts of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to contain fiscal deficit would help in improving the price situation.
Mukherjee had pegged the fiscal deficit for 2011-12 at 4.6 per cent of
the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but it turned out to be 5.9 per cent,
as per the revised estimates.
Lauding the efforts of Mukherjee to bring down the fiscal deficit to 5.1
per cent in the next financial year, Singh said, "It is essential for
us to achieve our objectives of growth with reasonable price stability."
Referring to agriculture sector, Singh said, government has attached
high priority to raising public investment in the farm sector.
The efforts of the government, he said, has helped in raising
agriculture output to 3-3.5 per cent. "This year we are likely to
achieve a record production of food grains of 250 million tonnes," he
added.
Emerging story. Watch this space for updates as more details come in
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