Even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually ruled out a tie-up with the Congress and announced candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the grand old party said they are still hopeful of a pre-poll alliance with the TMC.
"Our doors are always open, and an alliance can happen anytime before the withdrawal (of nominations)," Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said.
The Trinamool Congress’s decision to go solo in the parliament elections has come as a major setback to the opposition INDIA bloc formed to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national level.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh maintained that any agreement has to be finalised through negotiations and not by unilateral announcements. “The Indian National Congress has repeatedly declared its desire to have a respectable seat-sharing agreement with the TMC in West Bengal,” he said in a post on X.
The Congress has two MPs in West Bengal and the party demanded at least five seats during the seat-sharing talks. The TMC, however, asserted that it cannot offer more than two seats to the national party.
Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, meanwhile, launched a scathing attack on Banerjee over her decision to announce candidates unilaterally.
Chowdhury alleged that the chief minister didn’t want to leave Prime Minister Narendra Modi unhappy by being a part of the INDIA bloc.
“Mamata Banerjee is in fear that if she continues to be in the INDIA alliance, PM Modi will be unhappy. By separating herself from the INDIA alliance, she has sent a message to the PMO—'Don't be unhappy with me, I am not standing to fight against the BJP'," the Congress leader was quoted as saying by NDTV.
In its candidates list, the Trinamool has dropped seven incumbent MPs and introduced several new faces, including former cricketer Yusuf Pathan who will take on Chowdhury in Baharampur.
