NEW DELHI, March 19 (agencies): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in an interview to CNN IBN said that her party will quit the United Progressive Alliance, if humiliated.
Defending her decision to sack railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, the Trinamool Congress chief said that Trivedi had kept her and the party in the dark about the hike in passenger fare.
Mamata told CNN IBN: “I was kept in the dark by the minister. But first I chose to overlook. I was kept in the dark (about amendment to RPF Act), came to know only when the chief minister of a state wrote to the prime minister. The railway minister did not consult me.”
CNN IBN qouted her saying, “Can you think that without discussing the policy decision with Soniaiji the Congress can place the Budget? In every party there is a `parampara` (tradition).”
She also said that it was her right to decide who would become the railway minister but also added that her party did not want to topple the UPA.
She also told CNN IBN: “We do not want that the government should be toppled, but we want respect. We are not blackmailing the government. It is an alliance government.”
Earlier in the day, Mamata meet Manmohan Singh about the hike in passenger fare.
“It was a good meeting… the issue of rollback of passenger fare hike and making party leader Mukul Roy as the new railway minister are the prerogatives of the prime minister,” Banerjee said.