Sangma and Mamata merge their parties

In what may be called a marriage of convenience, two constituents of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) yesterday announced their merger to form a new composite party ahead of the general elections next month.

The All India Trinamool Congress, a regional outfit of West Bengal headed by federal Coal Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) breakaway faction headed by the former Lok Sabha speaker Purno Sangma announced the formation of the new party.

The new party has been named the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC).

This is the second instance of two NDA partners merging to form a larger composite party after the Janata Dal (United) and the Samata Party came together.

Although such mergers are aimed at extracting greater say in the formation of the next government and getting more ministerial berths, in the ultimate analysis it may help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that heads the NDA since it will help it put up a unified fight against the fragmented opposition.

Mamata Banerjee will head the new party as its chairperson. Both Banerjee and Sangma, who worked together in the past as senior leaders of the principal opposition Congress party, drove together to the Election Commission to inform it about their merger.

Consequently, Sangma withdrew his application for provisional registration of his Nationalist People's Congress, the name he gave to his faction upon the Election Commission's recognition to the Sharad Pawar faction of the party.

NTC has applied for a new symbol, which will now be issued to it only after the general elections get over. The new party will contest the upcoming polls on the Trinamool Congress' existing 'pair of leafs' symbol.

"Our idea is to work together for expansion in the entire eastern and north-eastern region and strengthen the NDA," the two leaders announced at a joint press conference held at Sangma's Aurangzeb Road residence.

The new grouping will be a member of the North-East People's Forum, a conglomerate of various small regional parties of the northeast.

Given the limited popularity of Banerjee in the northeast and Sangma's influence confined to the northeast, their merger may not have any direct bearing on the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls. However, it will definitely help the NTC stake a strong claim to get recognised as one of the national parties. The existing rules stipulate that a party must win at least four per cent of popular votes in a minimum of three states.

While the Trinamool Congress had won nine seats in the 1999 general elections from West Bengal, the NCP had won a seat each in Manipur and Meghalaya.

The two leaders have come together without resolving their differences on whether the foreign origin of their erstwhile leader Sonia Gandhi remains an issue for them. The NCP was born in 1998 on this issue and Sangma stuck to his stand, leading to the NCP's split after Pawar decided to have a pre-poll alliance with the Congress party in his home state Maharashtra.

Banerjee on the other hand has often said Sonia's foreign origin is a non-issue. In fact, she went to the extent of contesting the last state assembly polls in West Bengal in alliance with the Congress party after temporarily pulling out of the NDA.

The northeast as a region has in all only 25 out of 543 Lok Sabha seats. Assam, the largest state in the region has 14 Lok Sabha seats while Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura have two seats each. Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim have one seat each.

However, all major political parties are for the first time paying extra attention on this region expecting a close fight in which even a few seats can make or mar prospect of any particular party or group in forming the next government.