Eyeing polls, Cong, BJP woo Mamata

Wounded didi returns, says Delhi is not safe Venkat Parsa New Delhi: The Congress and the BJP are making all-out efforts to woo West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, with eye on the General Election in 2014. Equally vigorously the BJP is reaching out to Mamata Banerjee. BJP President Rajnath Singh talked over telephone to Mamata Banerjee and later he condemned the attack on her. Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj condemned the attack and said the CPM must apologise for this misconduct. Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday left Delhi in a huff and returned to Kolkata, declaring, "Delhi is not safe; I am sorry. I was badly manhandled, but I cannot speak about it openly." Mamata Banerjee was heckled on Tuesday by activists of the SFI, affiliated to CPM, when she arrived at Yojana Bhavan, offices of the Planning Commission in the Capital and her Finance Minister Amit Mitra was manhandled and is now in hospital. The Congress stepped into damage-control mode and is making all-out efforts to assuage the hurt feelings of Mamata Banerjee, after she cancelled at the last-minute her meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath joined the chorus of the leaders, who apologised to Mamata Banerjee. Significantly, West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan, whose relations with the State Chief Minister were strained, also condemned the attack, saying, "The shocking premeditated assault on the chief minister is an extremely unfortunate incident and a blot on India's cherished democratic values." Mamata Banerjee was taken to a premier private clinic here for a check-up after she returned from Delhi on Wednesday, PTI reports from Kolkata. Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee, who returned from Delhi along with Banerjee, said the Chief Minister was taken to the clinic, but did not know whether she was admitted.