Speaking to mediapersons in Murshidabad’s Berhampore on Sunday, Chowdhury said, “Didi (Mamata Banerjee) is ruining the prospect of the alliance in the state. If you listen to what she said, it will be clear that she did not want an alliance. Her party says that it is interested in the alliance nationally, but not in Bengal. It is clear that the CM does not want an alliance here.”
At a public meeting in North 24 Parganas last Thursday, Banerjee had said, “INDIA will be there across India but in Bengal the Trinamool Congress will put up a good fight.”
Chowdhury, the Congress’ Berhampore MP, added that his party is making its own preparations for the Lok Sabha polls. “We don’t bother what the TMC says about the alliance. We are preparing ourselves to contest the polls. We defeated both the TMC and the BJP multiple times and the trend will be repeated. But we don’t have any objection to an alliance,” said Chowdhury.
The CPIM agreed with what Chowdhury said about the TMC and the INDIA alliance. “We have apprehension whether Mamata Banerjee wants an alliance with INDIA bloc constituents nationally. But she is not serious about the alliance anywhere,” said senior CPIM leader Samik Lahiri.
There is a tussle going on between the Congress and the TMC over seat-sharing in Bengal. The TMC has decided to offer only two seats to the Congress — Berhampore and Malda South — which the grand old party had won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it is learnt. However, the Congress has asked for more seats from the ruling party in the state, rattling the TMC leadership.
Reacting to his statement, the Trinamool Congress reminded Chowdhury that the Congress lacked organisational strength in Bengal to take on the BJP.
TMC state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar told this newspaper, “In the Congress hierarchy, Adhir Chowdhury does not have any say in national politics. He should not talk about the larger alliance. He must be reminded that under his presidency the Congress has become zero in the West Bengal Assembly. It was a great failure to not win a single seat in the 2022 state Assembly polls. He is forgetting this. The Congress has just two MPs in West Bengal. Beyond that the Congress cannot claim any seat based on any electoral arithmetic. They are not the strongest opponent in any of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal. Therefore, his party cannot claim any more seats than the two they won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.”