Adhir urges Sonia to not forge alliance with TMC

Shortly before the meeting between Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi scheduled in New Delhi next week, Adhir Chowdhury, West Bengal Pradesh Congress

Committee (WBPCC) president on Saturday wrote a letter asking the latter not to make any alliance with the Trinamool.

Banerjee is likely to discuss with Gandhi about the presidential candidate for the forthcoming election of the President of India. Political experts said that the duo might discuss about the formation of a front of which both Congress and Trinamool Congress will be a part.

The experts said that many leaders in Congress and CPI(M) are still against the alliance between the two parties.

The arch rivals came close before the 2016 Assembly election and the CPI(M) politburo had described the alliance "not in consonance with the party's central committee's decision." The result of the alliance was disastrous. CPI(M) bagged 26 seats while Congress got 44 seats out of 294 seats in the Assembly.

Flouting the politburo's diktat, the Bengal lobby of CPI(M) went ahead with the alliance with the Congress before the elections to the seven municipalities which will be held on Sunday.

Political experts said Trinamool Congress supremo was eying for an anti-BJP alliance before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where Congress may be one of the partners. Even the Kerala lobby of CPI(M) is considering the proposal seriously.

With this background, the formation of a secular front to counter BJP has made Chowdhury quite nervous. He apprehends that if there is an alliance between Congress and Trinamool Congress in 2019, he will lose his political importance in Bengal politics and finally, Congress will be eradicated in Bengal.

In the letter he stated that Trinamool Congress had created an atmosphere of terror in Bengal. The members of the Opposition parties are quite unsafe as they can be attacked anytime. So, even if there is secular front, Congress should not forge alliance with Trinnamool Congress before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.