May 29, 2009 New Delhi:
Aide drives Banerjee to Rail Bhavan in his car on her first day as Railway Minister
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, riding an unprecedented wave of support from across West Bengal — trouncing the Left in its worst defeat in three decades — has returned a cheque of over Rs 27 lakh sent to her by the Tata Electoral Trust after Verdict 2009.
“I politely returned it,” she said here today. “I don’t have any ill will against the Tatas.”
Last October, Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata had blamed Banerjee and her party for forcing him to pull the Nano project out of the state. “I once mentioned that if somebody puts a gun to my head, you pull the trigger or you take the gun away because I have not moved my head. I think Ms (Mamata) Banerjee has pulled the trigger,” he had said.
An official spokesperson of the Tata group confirmed the cheque had been rejected. Another party that rejected the money given by the Trust is the CPM, which, ideologically, does not accept corporate funding.
Said new Trinamool MP and inducted as Minister of State, Rural Development, Sisir Adhikari: “A meeting of all the party candidates was held and our leader (Banerjee) placed the issue before all of us. It was unanimously decided that we will not accept the money.”
Sources said the corpus for the Tata Electoral Trust is built over five years with contribution from Tata group companies, other corporates as well as individuals. The money is distributed to parties in two tranches of 50 per cent each. The first tranche for general elections 2009 was distributed based on the party-wise strength of the 14th Lok Sabha and the second tranche based on the parties’ performance in the 15th Lok Sabha. Parties qualify for funds only if they get at least three per cent of the total strength of the Lok Sabha — a minimum of 16 of the total 543 seats.
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