Sonia bid to contain Bengal crisis

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 2. Amid reports of new political alignments likely in West Bengal, two senior State Congress(I) leaders, Mr. A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury and Mr. Somen Mitra, arrived here tonight from Calcutta on a summons from the party chief, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, in what is seen as a last-ditch effort by her to prevent a split in the State unit.

While Mr. Mitra has been publicly identified as the ``architect'' of the Congress(I)'s debacle in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, Mr. Choudhury, president of the State unit, has ``incriminated'' himself with his public statements indirectly holding the party ``high command'' responsible for cross-voting in the elections.

The purpose of calling them to Delhi, it was stated, was to get a firsthand account of what went wrong and what could be done to limit the damage. Ms. Gandhi is reported to be particularly keen on mollifying Mr. Mitra whose differences with Mr. Priyaranjan Das Munshi, MP, and his faction, have brought the State unit to the verge of a split. Mr. D.P. Roy was chosen the party's candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections apparently at the behest of the Munshi faction despite widespread opposition from other groups and especially Mr. Mitra.

In his meeting with Ms. Gandhi, Mr. Mitra is expected to convey to her the reasons for the restlessness in the State unit and stress the need for greater ``democratisation'' of party functioning. Mr. Das Munshi is already reported to have made a ``pre-emptive'' move by giving Ms. Gandhi a brief and getting a group of MLAs to demand an inquiry into the cross-voting.

Meanwhile, even as Ms. Gandhi prepared to defuse the crisis, there was speculation that ``rebel'' Congressmen were likely to pursue the idea of a ``grand alliance'' floated by the Trinamul Congress leader and the Union Railway Minister, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, to fight the Left Front in West Bengal. Reports suggest that if Mr. Mitra's talks with Ms. Gandhi fail, the rebels could break away and form another party as a prelude to an alliance with the Trinamul Congress.

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