Mamata rules out seat-sharing with Cong in Bengal for Lok Sabha polls

: Putting a lid over any possible seat-sharing talks with the Congress in Bengal for Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee clarified that her party will be contesting all 42 seats while alleging that the grand old party did not inform her of Rahul Gandhi’s upcoming visit to the state as part of ‘Nyay Yatra’.

Banerjee told reporters on Wednesday that there is no seat sharing talks with Congress in Bengal. She alleged that her proposal for such an alliance was rejected by the Congress the first time she had pitched to them. She said that her party will be contesting all 42 seats in Bengal and is capable of defeating the BJP alone.

She added that Congress can contest 300 seats on the national level and the rest will be contested by the regional parties. “If Congress tries to get into the seats meant for regional parties, we will give a befitting reply,” Banerjee said.

Her comments come at a time when on Tuesday Rahul Gandhi, in Assam, told the media that his party has good relations with Mamata Banerjee and the usual political sparring between leaders of the two parties will not affect the seat sharing talks in Bengal.

State Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy alleged that it was expected that Mamata would take such a decision since she cannot afford to disappoint the BJP who has always been her secret ally.

However, the fact that her party will contest all 42 seats had already been announced by Banerjee during one of the recent party meetings at her Kalighat residence. She had even remarked to her party’s Murshidabad leadership that the state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury should be regarded as a competition there in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile, despite being a member of the INDIA bloc, the TMC supremo alleged that Congress did not inform her about Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Bengal as part of the ‘Nyay Yatra’. On Tuesday, some of the TMC’s Assam unit members were seen participating in Rahul Gandhi’s rally but Trinamool leaders in Bengal said that it was not a party decision and those that participated, did so in their individual capacities.