Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has refused to meet the five-member Congress committee to open seat-sharing talks for West Bengal ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Earlier CM Mamata Banerjee has offered “two seats” to Congress, which was readily rejected by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Dealing another setback to the Congress in the opposition INDIA bloc, on Thursday TMC signaled it would not meet the five-member national alliance committee of the Congress that has been holding talks with parties of the INDIA alliance to work out seat adjustments in states, reports Indian Express.
The five member committee of Congress that includes Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel, Mukul Wasnik, Salman Khurshid, and Mohan Prakash, has already held seat-sharing talks with Samajwadi Party (SP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Sharad Pawar faction of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar.
In West Bengal, TMC’s Mamata Banerjee offered Congress the seats Malda Dakshin, and Berhampur. Notably, Congress already holds these seats in West Bengal.
West Bengal Congress president Chowdhury has already rejected the offer saying the party had won those seats on its own in 2019 fighting against the TMC and the BJP, and that the Congress does not need any “grace or generosity” from Mamata to win those two seats.
Further, CM Mamata Banerjee has reiterated her claim that in case seat sharing talks fail with Congress, she could “take BJP solo” in West Bengal, triggering speculations of rift in the INDIA bloc.
The Congress is staking claim for many more seats, including Raiganj, Malda Uttar, Jangipur and Murshidabad.
TMC has repeatedly rejected negotiations over two seats.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Communist Party of India (Marxist), who is an INDIA bloc ally of TMC, has signalled it will not ally with the Mamata Banerjee helmed party at the state-level.
A senior TMC leader had told Indian Express that “Congress got over 30% votes in only two of the 42 seats in Bengal. If the top Congress leadership speaks to Mamata Banerjee directly, maybe she will concede one more seat.”
At this point, so close to the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls, a pact between Congress, TMC, and CPI(M) seems absolutely bleak in West Bengal.
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Published: 12 Jan 2024, 01:31 PM IST