Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee said on Monday that his party “has been repeatedly asking the Congress to talk on seat-sharing from the month of June”. He said, “It has been seven months. Nothing has happened.”
“In last meeting, our chairperson (Mamata Banerjee) gave a deadline of 31st December. Now it’s 29th of January. And its still wavering in my mind that which seat I should contest from and which seat my alliance parry will contest from,” Banerjee was heard as saying in a video shared on social media.
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According to PTI, Banerjee attributed the differences in Opposition bloc INDIA in West Bengal to the Congress’ failure to finalise seat-sharing arrangements.
“According to alliance norms, the first thing you do is seal the seat-sharing. We had waited for eight months to seal the seat-sharing issue. But the Congress was sitting idle and nothing moved forward,” Abhishek Banerjee was quoted by PTI as saying.
The TMC national general secretary also slammed West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury for playing into the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), despite being an ally at the national level. He slammed Chowdhury for “demanding President’s Rule in the state”.
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“By demanding President’s Rule, whose interest is the state Congress president trying to serve — the TMC, the Congress or the BJP? There is a limit to our patience,” he said. The TMC leader, however, iterated that the “party continues to be a part of the opposition bloc INDIA at the national level.”
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had last week announced that the party would go alone in the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal. Abhishek Banerjee is an MP of Diamond Harbour and the nephew of Mamata Banerjee.
(With inputs from PTI)
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Published: 29 Jan 2024, 10:43 PM IST