Day after West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury ‘won’t beg’ from Trinamool Congress (TMC) stirred a row, the TMC said it has an “open heart” for the Congress regarding seat-sharing in West Bengal for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, but it was also prepared to “go solo” if it was required.
TMC’s leader in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay told news agency PTI, “Our leader Mamata Banerjee has already said that we have an open heart for the Congress. Now, what they will do is up to them. Whether there will be an in West Bengal will be decided by Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee. What local Congress leaders think is immaterial.”
Another TMC leader, on condition of anonymity, said that the party was open to having an alliance in West Bengal but was also ready to go solo if needed.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, TMC had won 22 seats, Congress two and BJP 18 seats.
Chowdhury, also the leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, won the Baharampur seat in Murshidabad district, and Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury, a former Union minister, secured a third straight win from the Maldaha Dakshin seat in the neighbouring Malda district.
The TMC and the Congress formed an alliance in the 2001 Assembly elections, 2009 Lok Sabha elections and 2011 assembly polls, in which they uprooted the CPI(M)-led Left Front government after 34 years.