Mamata is a good friend: Digvijaya

New Delhi: Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday said he is 'grateful' to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for supporting the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee in the upcoming Presidential election.

"We are very grateful to Mamata Banerjee for extending her support to Pranab Mukherjee and I am quite hopeful that she will support our vice-presidential candidate Hamid Ansari as well," Singh told reporters here.

Singh, who had recently called Mamata 'immature' and 'erratic', said she is his 'good friend'.

"I have known Mamata for last three decades and we are good friends," he said.

After a bitter season of political feud, Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday came around finally in support of Mukherjee in the Presidential elections scheduled on Thursday, though making it amply clear that the Trinamool Congress decision was not one taken from the heart.

Mamata announced that her party lawmakers in the state and at the centre will vote for United Progressive Alliance (UPA)'s Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee in the July 19 polls.

"We have decided to vote for Pranab Mukherjee," Mamata told reporters, adding that the decision was "painful."

"It was a difficult decision. We had no other option," she said. Mamata said the decision was a 'political one'.

In an interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate on June 17, Singh had said: "Well there is a limit to which we can bend to. You have seen the last one and one-and-a-half-year the way she has handled. Although it goes to a credit that on some issues she has agreed on critical matters."

He said the Congress has not asked Banerjee to leave the UPA.

"As far as we are concerned, we are not throwing her out, we are not asking her to leave," Singh said.

"Well, all efforts have been made to console her, to accept her views, to accept her tantrums," he said.

"Well, there is some immaturity if can't be avoided have to be faced," he said.