Kolkata: After much hemming and hawing, a miffed Trinamool Congress has softened somewhat and is likely to attend Wednesday morning’s strategy meeting of floor leaders in the chamber of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on the speaker’s post.
A Backstage Twist
Earlier in the day, in a backstage twist, TMC had lamented that it was not consulted by the Congress party on the "unilateral" nomination’’ of its Kerala MP K Suresh for the Speaker’s post and said the party would decide by evening on what stand to take. When K. Suresh filed his nomination for the post of Speaker on Tuesday morning, TMC from the INDIA bloc didn’t sign his papers.
The TMC has 29 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Its numbers, however, do not count unless Congress is assured of weaning away TDP and Janata Dal(U) and persuading them to crossvote for Suresh. It is understood that TMC decided to play along after the outreach by Congress leaders.
An indication of the thaw came when TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi were seen talking with each other on the floor of Parliament.
