Invited by Congress, Mamata likely to attend Nehru conference

According to reports, Congress has invited 15 political parties from other countries and "all like-minded political parties" for an international conference in Delhi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on Nov 17.

In this process the party is learnt to have invited Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, AIADMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa and JD(U) leader and former Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

Congress has invited almost all parties - including Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav and the also the Left parties.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi doesn't featured in the list.

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma confirmed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his party BJP, or any of its allies, has not been invited.

He said, among those in the list included Communist Party of China adding that many world leaders had confirmed participation.

Sources said, Mamata Banerjee is likely to travel to Delhi for the Congress conference.

Political experts has termed the it as a 'big turn'.

According to them, this development may pave the way for Congress-Trinamool re-union ahead of the Bengal Assembly polls, which is due in 2016.

Mamata and Congress had a bitter end to their coalition, when Trinamool Congress left the Congress-led UPA in 2012.

But now, BJP's rise in Bengal has left Mamata short of option, other than to re-visit old ally.

Mamata led Trinamool Congress has stood out as one of the sharpest critics of PM Modi in recent times.

On the other hand, no confirmation has been yet received from Jayalalithaa and Nitish Kumar, but Congress is hopeful that they will also join the event.

The conference would be chaired by party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi would lead the party's delegation.

In the mean time, BJP has tried to downplay the snub. Party spokesperson Sambit Patra has reportedly said, "Modi will not be in the country on the dates of the conference. He is away on a 10-day tour of Myanmar, Australia and Fiji. So there's no question of being invited."

The mind-game between Congress and BJP-led NDA continues to make headlines.

Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh were invited for Sunday's oath ceremony of 21 new ministers inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet, but they didn't attend.

Earlier, NDA Government chose to mark the 30 October celebrating the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhai Patel.

During the UPA regime, the day was remembered as the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

On this front , "The Congress has to realise that the PM is not PM of a party. They should realise it disrespects the nation. Why is the Congress feeling this government will steal heroes of yesteryears? No one can steal this."

It is noteworthy to mention here that the Centre plans its own commemoration of Nehru's 125th birth anniversary and PM has reconstituted a committee set up for this by the previous Congress-led UPA government.

The committee is now headed by Modi instead of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and includes Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge and Karan Singh.