Cong should have left seat-sharing talks decision to Mamata: TMC

Kolkata: At a time when the possibility of an alliance with the Congress in Bengal seems to have reached a dead-end, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sudip Bandopadhyay is learnt to have said that the seat-sharing talks should have been left to his party chairperson Mamata Banerjee who is capable of reducing the BJP to zero in a similar manner how the Left and the Congress were allegedly reduced to nothing in Bengal by her.

Recently, Mamata clarified that there is no chance of any seat-sharing anymore with the Congress in Bengal. She claimed that the grand old party had rejected her proposal to the seat-sharing formula where TMC was ready to leave two seats to Congress which had demanded more than six seats.

Bandopadhyay is learnt to have told the media after an all-party meeting in Delhi that it would have been prudent had the Congress left the seat-sharing decision to Banerjee. He asserted that Mamata is capable of reducing the BJP to zero in the same way she reduced the Left and the Congress to zero in Bengal. Further, the MP echoed the allegations of Banerjee that the Congress never invited TMC for Bengal leg of ‘Nyay Yatra’.

TMC has, however, blamed Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for the collapse of alliance talks in Bengal with Congress. TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, on Monday, said that Congress appears to be the “Trojan Horse” of BJP since Adhir has allegedly never criticized the BJP but continued to target Mamata.

However, he confirmed that TMC will continue to remain a part of the INDIA bloc at the national level, claiming that it will only consider being a part of such an alliance if the Congress is able to defeat the BJP in at least 300 seats at the

national level.