Mamata on seats: I waited and waited...
Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee complained on Friday that she had waited 18 days for the Congress to come to an understanding on seat-sharing for the West Bengal Assembly polls but the latter kept procrastinating.
“For the sake of the alliance I waited for 18 days since the announcement of the polls in the state on March 1. I had discussions with Congress leaders till Thursday night. Whenever they wanted I sent Mukul Roy (Union minister of state for shipping) to hold talks with Congress leaders in Delhi. In Kolkata I myself took part in the discussions. But I do not know why there is such confusion even after everything was cleared,” Ms Banerjee said.
She said she could not have waited forever because the first phase of the Assembly polls (north Bengal) was scheduled for April 18 and nominations would begin March 24. Ms Banerjee did not forget to remind the Congress leadership that it was the Trinamul Congress that would call the shots in the state.
“Theirs may be the larger party and we respect them, but in this state our party is the real force,” she said, adding that the Trinamul would win a two-third majority.
“We will definitely bring pariborton (change) in the state, no force on earth can stop us. The CPI(M) will not just lose but we will come to power with a two-third majority,” she said.
A cursory glance at the Trinamul Congress list makes it clear that Ms Banerjee has given short shrift to the Congress which has been given 26 seats out of 54 in north Bengal and only 38 seats out of 240 in south Bengal.
In important districts like Hooghly, Howrah, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas the Congress has got only one seat each. In the state capital of Kolkata, the Congress was denied even a single seat.
She even rejected the Congress leadership’s persistent demand for the Port seat in Kolkata for sitting MLA Ram Pyare Ram who has won it six times in a row.
The Trinamul chief had initially agreed to spare only 58 seats for the Congress while the Congress leadership had sought 98 seats. After hard bargaining, the Congress scaled down its demand to 90 seats while Ms Banerjee agreed to give 64 to the Congress. The two parties were expected to forge an alliance during formal talks between Ms Banerjee and Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on the night of March 14. However, even after 75-minute-long talks in which two AICC general secretaries, Shakeel Ahmed and Janardhan Poojary, were also present, the two sides failed to reach an agreement. Mr Mukherjee had announced that they would hold another round of talks. On Wednesday, Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Mr Ahmed Patel, requested Ms Banerjee to wait for the Congress president to return from UK on March 21 before announcing the list. She turned down the request and went ahead and announced the list.
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