TMC to clear stance on oppn's vice prez poll candidate on July 21: Party MP

Shortly after NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar named Margaret Alva as the joint vice-presidential candidate of 17 opposition parties, the TMC said it would clear its stance on the nomination by July 21.Veteran MP Saugata Roy explained that TMC parliamentarians would attend a meeting, chaired by supremo Mamata Banerjee, on July 21, when the party observes Martyrs Day, and an announcement would then be made in this regard.Echoing him, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the partys top leadership is assessing and discussing the entire vice-presidential poll issue. Banerjee was then a Youth Congress leader.

Shortly after NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar named Margaret Alva as the joint vice-presidential candidate of 17 opposition parties, the TMC said it would clear its stance on the nomination by July 21.

Veteran MP Saugata Roy explained that TMC parliamentarians would attend a meeting, chaired by supremo Mamata Banerjee, on July 21, when the party observes Martyrs' Day, and an announcement would then be made in this regard.

Echoing him, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the party's top leadership is "assessing and discussing the entire vice-presidential poll issue". "We are a disciplined party. We will not say anything on the issue beforehand,'' he said.

Earlier in the day, senior TMC leader and Bengal minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, taking a swipe at Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar over his vice-presidential poll candidature by the NDA, said that he had been rewarded by the BJP for antagonising Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Bhattacharya, the MoS for Health and Finance, also said that Dhankhar had been acting as a spokesperson of the BJP while occupying the governor's chair.

Ghosh, when asked to comment on Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar's appeal to the TMC to extend its support to the NDA vice-presidential candidate, told reporters, ''There is no point in commenting on what the trainee state unit president of the BJP said.'' Announcing Dhankhar's candidature, BJP president J P Nadda had on Saturday lauded him as a ''kisan putra'' (farmer's son) who established himself as a ''people's governor''.

The TMC observes July 21 as Martyrs' Day in memory of the 13 youth Congress workers killed in police firing in Kolkata in 1993 when the Left Front was in power. Banerjee was then a Youth Congress leader.