Trinamool Congress's pull-out from UPA
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 20, 2012 -

The fragile relationship among the partners of a coalition government has once again come to the fore when Mamata Banerjee, the fiery supremo of Trinamool Congress Party announced the decision of her party to withdraw support of the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre.

Although Congress party maintained that it is not going to affect the UPA Government, Mamata Banerjee's decision to pull out her party from the coalition government has not only created an uneasy position for the Congress party over the prospect of reaching out to Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party to get the required numbers in Mamata's absence, but also an interesting situation wherein almost every possible political parties in the country have been made to sit and weigh the pros and cons of Mamata's move.

After a joint meeting attended by all party MPs, Cabinet Ministers and other senior leaders, Mamata on Tuesday announced the decision of parting way from the ruling coalition, thus escalating a political firestorm over the big-ticket reform measures launched by the government last week to revive the country's flagging economy.

Trinamool Congress Party has been demanding the government to reserve its decision to raise diesel price and open the country's supermarket sector to investment from foreign chains such as Wal-Mart stores and had earlier issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the UPA government in this regard.

However, with UPA looking the other way, a jilted Mamata went ahead with translating her party's threat into action, thus giving a jolt not only to the Congress-led coalition UPA Government, but also to the prevailing political uncertainty in the country.

Now that Trinamool Congress has refused to back off and the Congress has made it clear that there is no threat to the coalition, we can safely assumed that the political honeymooning between the Congress and Trinamool Congress is a closed chapter.

Of course, despite being the biggest ally in UPA, the withdrawal of Trinamool Congress Party, and that of its 19 MPs in the Lower House of Parliament, is not likely to destabilize the government as Dr Manmohan's Congress party can still count on other political parties like Bahujan Samaj Party and Samawadi Party for support to fill the gap left by the exit of Trinamool Congress and its MPs.

However, we are yet to see the response of the two parties and their ambitious leaders who would think of nothing but gaining the most from the current situation with their eyes firmly set on the next Parliament election in 2014.

While the coming days would only unfold more political drama with Opposition mulling no trust motion against the UPA government, one thing we can rest assure - the dramatic pull out of Trinamool Congress has definitely exposed the credibility of UPA as a coalition government.