Mamata may resign to focus on WB poll

Is the mercurial Trinamul Congress supremo, Ms Mamata Banerjee, contemplating resigning from the Union Cabinet to concentrate completely on next year’s Assembly elections in West Bengal?

Speculation has intensified about this after her party’s landslide victory in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections and its impressive showing in the civic polls across the rest of the state. She is likely to take a final call on this later this year, with the state election — which she is widely expected to win — likely to take place in early 2011.

But even if she resigns from the Manmohan Singh government, she will still remain a “trusted ally” of the Congress in the UPA for its full five-year term, and has no intention of relinquishing control over the railway ministry.

She has made it extremely clear that if she steps down, she would insist that her party retain the railway portfolio at the Centre. In her absence, either Mr Dinesh Trivedi or Mr Mukul Roy, both of whom are ministers of state at the Centre, are likely to be considered for the railway portfolio.

The sources close to Ms Banerjee said that “following criticism that she was not able to give adequate time to her ministerial duties in New Delhi, Didi intends to quit.