Mamata to take final call on seat sharing, Cong Bengal unit cannot do unjustified bargaining: TMC

Based on the 2021 assembly poll results in the state, in which the Congress in alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front had fared badly, the Trinamool Congress top leadership offered the grand old party two seats, out of the 42

PTI, Kolkata, Jan 20, 2023 :  The TMC on Saturday said its supremo Mamata Banerjee will take the final call on seat sharing with the Congress in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha polls this year and asserted that “unjustified bargaining” cannot be done by the state unit of the grand old party.

Based on the 2021 assembly poll results in the state, in which the Congress in alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front had fared badly, the Trinamool Congress top leadership offered the grand old party two seats, out of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, in the coming general elections, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.

“The Congress state unit cannot do unjustified bargaining on the matter,” Ghosh said.

Meanwhile, All India Mahila Congress President Alka Lamba said in Siliguri that the party’s leadership has been holding parleys with constituents of the INDIA bloc in different states, including in West Bengal, for seat sharing for the Lok Sabha elections.

She said the process will be concluded soon.

“Parleys are on in different states over seat sharing, including in West Bengal,” she told reporters in the north Bengal city.

Ghosh also said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in “communication with the INDIA bloc leadership” and that nothing has been finalised yet.

“Mamata Banerjee will take the final call,” he told PTI.

Banerjee had on Friday asserted, in a closed-door meeting with the party’s leaders in Murshidabad district, that the TMC is ready to independently contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state if not given due importance in the INDIA bloc.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front, Congress and the TMC are part of the opposition INDIA bloc.

The state leadership of the Congress, which has been offered two seats by the TMC, is demanding some more constituencies.

In the 2019 elections, the Congress managed to win only two Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.

The CPI(M) in West Bengal has asserted that its fight was against both the TMC and the BJP in the state.

The Congress and the Left could not open their accounts in the 2021 assembly elections in the state.

West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said he has won elections fighting against both the TMC and the BJP.

To a question whether the Congress was prepared to fight the elections alone in the state, he said, “We are ready for any possibility, Congress can do everything.” Chowdhury, who was in Siliguri to attend a meeting of the Congress leadership on the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, refused to react to the TMC spokesman’s comments on seat sharing.

“I do not bother who is saying what, I have always fought against adversaries and won,” the Baharampur MP added.