Making the right choice of allies is crucial to electoral politics. There was nothing right about Ms Mamata Banerjee?s idea of a mahajot, or a grand alliance, against the left in the coming polls in Bengal. It is not surprising, therefore, that the latest round of talks between her and Mr Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister and president of the Bengal unit of the Congress, yielded nothing. There is a farcical element in Ms Banerjee?s public posturing about the unreal alliance. She knows that the Bharatiya Janata Party is the Congress?s main rival in national politics. The Congress too has made it clear that it cannot ally with her Trinamool Congress as long as the latter remains a partner of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Her refusal to part ways with the BJP practically ended all hopes of a pact between the Congress and her party. Her attempts to blame the Congress for this failure will not convince even her supporters. In the assembly elections in 2001, the Congress had no problem in forging an alliance with her after she had broken away from the BJP. Even this time, Mr Mukherjee offered, obviously at Ms Sonia Gandhi?s behest, to project Ms Banerjee as the anti-Left alliance?s chief ministerial candidate only if she left the NDA. But, the Trinamool leader asked for the impossible ? an alliance with both the Congress and the BJP.

Ms Banerjee?s political calculations are obviously wrong. She risks much more by allying with the BJP than she can hope to gain. The saffronites are a small political force in Bengal. Worse, they can be a major liability in a state where Muslims form nearly one-third of the electorate. The Lok Sabha polls of 2004 showed what price she had to pay for keeping the BJP?s company. By contrast, the Congress remains her natural ally. Not only is the Congress the obvious choice of a partner for a politician anxious to put up a secular image, but it is also the party with which she has much in common. She left the Congress in 1998 not because of any differences with its policies, but over a clash of personal ambitions in the party. It should now be clear to her that her exit from the Congress has only helped the Marxists. In theory, a one-on-one contest with the left all over Bengal is the best case scenario for the opposition. But a divided opposition has no option but to carefully choose possible allies. Ms Banerjee has clearly failed the test.