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Mamata gives 12-day ultimatum to NDA

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday threatened to walk out of the National Democratic Alliance if the decision to bifurcate the Eastern Railway zone was not reviewed within 12 days.

During this period, she told reporters in Kolkata, her party would take up a series of agitational programmes, including a Bangla bandh on August 5, to focus public attention on the bifurcation issue.

"We will wait till August 12 (the day of vice-presidential election) for the decision to be reviewed and if it is not done, we will have no other option but to quit NDA," she said.

She said the party would also boycott the vice-presidential election in protest against the bifurcation.

The party's working committee met on Wednesday to review its association with the NDA in the light of the Union Cabinet's decision to go ahead with the bifurcation of Eastern Railway, a move Trinamool has opposed bitterly.

Mamata said working committee would meet again in New Delhi on August 13 to take a final decision on leaving the NDA.

The Trinamool chief said Prime Minister Vajpayee had hardly any control over the government now. "Our support to the NDA was for Prime Minister Vajpayee, but the way NDA government is being run, we have doubts whether the prime minister has the authority," she said.

PTI

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