Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will on Wednesday host a luncheon for MPs of UPA and supporting parties. Party sources say that the get-together would facilitate greater interaction with all MPs of the ruling alliance as also supporting parties ahead of the voting on presidential elections on July 19.

Political circles are abuzz with speculations of Mamata Banerjee’s attendance, now that her party has agreed to support UPA-nominee Pranab Mukherjee. The Trinamool chief a week ago had declined to attend saying that she would be busy with a Trinamool Congress ‘martyr’s day’ rally in Kolkata on July 21 for which party workers would begin arriving from July 18.

Making a 360 degree turn from her earlier stand, Mamata on Tuesday said the Trinamool, the second largest partner in the UPA coalition, will support Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature.

The Trinamool supremo, who admitted that she and Mukherjee had not been on talking terms for the last eight months, announced the decision after holding a meeting with her party’s MLAs and MPs.

“We had to take this decision as we had no other choice. We have not taken this decision very happily, but we had to take it considering a greater interest for the people of West Bengal and the compulsion of coalition politics. This is our political decision,” the chief minister said at the state secretariat Writers’ Buildings.

The two major UPA partners, both in West Bengal and at the centre, were at loggerheads of late over many issues, including the presidential polls.

The UPA election managers are meanwhile confident that Pranab will have a runaway victory in the contest against Opposition backed P.A. Sangma.