Setting the tone for a bitter campaign ahead of the West Bengal elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah
welcomed Trinamool Congress deserters into the BJP and targeted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying “this is just the beginning” and “you will be alone” by the time the polls start.
The ice is broken but the chill is far from over. In a five-hour-long, “free-wheeling discussion” with her Congress colleagues, Sonia Gandhi said issues have to be resolved and the party
has to be “one family”. Senior leaders, who said they were neither dissidents nor rebels, reiterated their demand for elections to posts at all levels, and the need to strengthen the party.