Eager to keep the Trinamool Congress on its side in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, the central leadership of the Congress has indicated to Mamata Banerjee that it is ready to settle for contesting six Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, party sources said, even though conflicting signals from the different parties continued to confound political pundits.
It is learnt that the Congress has set a deadline of 10 days for the Trinamool Congress to convey its decision, indicating that the party wants the agreement to be finalised by January 20.
The West Bengal unit of the Congress Party, led by its senior leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, has staked claim to at least 10 seats despite having misgivings about the merits of having an electoral tie-up with the Trinamool Congress given the grave corruption charges against the leaders of the party.
Sources said that Sonia Gandhi has written to Banerjee, asking her to take a call on a seat-sharing agreement over six parliamentary constituencies in which the party fancies its chances.
These six seats are Berhampore, which is represented by its members Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Malda (South) which is held by Abu Hashem Khan Chaudhury who is the younger brother of the late Congressman strongman Ghani Khan Chaudhury, and Murshidabad, Darjeeling, Raiganj and Purulia.
Political observers are of the opinion that such a proposal from Sonia Gandhi’s side also points to Congress’ eagerness to enter into an alliance with the Trinamool Congress and rule out any speculations that it may also tie up with the Left in Bengal. This also showed that the Congress is convinced that the Trinamool Congress will be a better ally in its fight to dislodge the BJP from the Centre.
However, even as the Congress high command is facilitating the seat-sharing agreement, the State unit of the party is going hammer and tongs at the Trinamool Congress.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy said that the state unit of Congress has no intention of entering into an alliance with Trinamool Congress which is allegedly neck-deep in corruption.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, reacting to the demand of the state Congress unit to leave them 10 seats, said it was like a “child’s whim”. He said that children often ask for many more chocolates or biscuits than they can possibly eat and maintained that the Congress was behaving in a similar manner.
In such a situation, it is learnt that the Congress’ Bengal observer for the Lok Sabha polls, Ghulam Ahmad Mir is coming down to West Bengal on January 15 to discuss the seat-sharing issue with the state Congress unit.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is also expected to reach North Bengal from Assam on January 27 as part of his Nyay Yatra.
