Left and Congress are all set for an alliance in Bengal.
Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Sunday claimed Congress president Sonia Gandhi has so far no news about a possible alliance between her party and the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal ahead of the coming Assembly elections.
"While returning from New Dehli, I suddenly met Soniaji (Gandhi) and asked her about a probable alliance...She instead asked me whether any such alliance was happening. She told me that no such news has reached her so far," the TMC leader told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. "It is apparent that such an alliance is not taking place. There is some campaign regarding seat adjustment at the state- level between the two parties, but as per my knowledge there is no alliance," Bandyopadhyay said, while speaking about his chance meeting with Sonia on Friday last.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Chowdhury had earlier said party workers wanted to forge an alliance with CPI(M)-led Left Front in order to take on the ruling TMC. Senior CPI(M) leaders including former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and party state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra have openly spoken in favour of an alliance with the Congress. The Congress had fought the 2011 Assembly elections in West Bengal in alliance with TMC, when the 34-year rule of Left Front came to an end.
TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had left the UPA at the Centre in September 2012, which led to the resignation of Congress ministers from the state cabinet. A team of senior state Congress leaders including Chowdhury, Pradip Bhattacharya, Deepa Dasmunshi, Mausam Benazir Noor and Abhijit Mukherjee met party vice president Rahul Gandhi earlier this month. "We presented all facts during our meeting. It is not that I am an advocate of an alliance, but it is the pressure of the grassroots-level workers who are in favour of such a tie-up," Chowdhury had said after his interaction with Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.
Rahul had summoned the state Congress leadership to New Delhi to discuss the political situation in the state ahead of the Assembly polls, which is due in a couple of months.
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