Mamata to take final call on seat sharing, Congress Bengal unit cannot do unjustified bargaining, says TMC
TMC on Saturday said its supremo Mamata Banerjee will take the final call on seat sharing with the Congress in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha polls this year and asserted that "unjustified bargaining" cannot be done by the state unit of the grand old party. Based on the 2021 assembly poll results in the state, in which the Congress in alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front had fared badly, the Trinamool Congress top leadership offered the grand old party two seats, out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, in the coming general elections, its spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said.
«The Congress state unit cannot do unjustified bargaining on the matter,» Ghosh said.
Meanwhile, All India Mahila Congress President Alka Lamba said in Siliguri that the party's leadership has been holding parleys with constituents of the INDIA bloc in different states, including in West Bengal, for seat sharing for the Lok Sabha elections.
She said the process will be concluded soon.
«Parleys are on in different states over seat sharing, including in West Bengal,» she told reporters.
Ghosh also said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in «communication with the INDIA bloc leadership and that nothing has been finalised yet.
»Mamata Banerjee will take the final call," he told PTI.
The CPI(M)-led Left Front, Congress and the TMC are part of the opposition INDIA bloc.
Banerjee had on Friday asserted, in a closed-door meeting with the party's leaders in Murshidabad district, that the TMC is ready to independently contest all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state if not given due importance in the INDIA bloc.
The state leadership of the Congress, which has been offered two seats by the TMC, is demanding some more constituencies.
I
