Congress will not join hands with TMC: Somen

Kolkata: Congress will not make any alliance with the Trinamool Congress in the forthcoming Lok Sabha election.

This was decided at a meeting held between party president Rahul Gandhi and WBPCC president Somen Mitra in New Delhi on Saturday.

However, Congress will consider in inking an alliance with the Left Front if it sends any proposal, Mitra added.

Reacting on the issue, Sitaram Yechuri said the Central Committee of the party will sit in Delhi in March where the matter may come up for discussion.

CPI(M) and Congress had made an alliance against the Trinamool Congress before the Assembly elections in Bengal in 2016, the first-of-its-kind in the history of both the parties who are considered to be arch rivals in Indian politics much before Independence.

The result was disastrous for the Left Front. The Left Front got only 32 seats, the lowest since 1972. Following the result, the Bengal lobby of the CPI(M) had been severely criticised by the Politburo of the party.

Currently, both parties have five MPs in Parliament. The Congress has three members in the outgoing Lok Sabha. They are AHA Khan Chowdhury, Adhir Chowdhury and Abhijit Mukherjee. Mousam Nur who was a party's MP has recently joined the Trinamool Congress.