West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Friday said that the Congress party was not going to beg for seats from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the forthcoming General Election.
Mr. Chowdhury, who represents the Behrampore Lok Sabha seat in Murshidabad, also made it clear that he was going to contest from the seat in the Lok Sabha elections.
“The Trinamool needs support of Congress party more than the Congress needs them. They [the TMC] thinks that they will give us two seats [in West Bengal] and will bargain [with] us [for] seats in north east and Goa,” Mr. Chowdhury told journalists.
The remarks come at a time when Congress MP from Malda Dakshin Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury has said that a deal had been struck with the Trinamool on giving two seats to the Congress in the State. The Congress MP was referring to the Malda Dakshin and Behrampore Lok Sabha seats.
The State Congress president, however, did not indicate any such agreement was arrived at. Mr. Chowdhury dared any Trinamool leader, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, to contest against him from Behrampore.
“She [Mamata Banerjee] wants Priyanka Gandhi to contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi. I challenge her to contest against me from Behrampore. If I lose elections, I will quit politics,” the Congress leader said.
Mr. Chowdhury, known as one of the most vocal critics of the West Bengal Chief Minister, said that he had defeated the TMC on two occasions in the past.
There has been no confirmation from the Trinamool Congress on giving any seat to Congress party in the State. There are 42 Lok Sabha seats in the State, and the Congress party has two MPs.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said that at a time when Ms. Banerjee was working with Congress leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, such remarks from the Bengal Congress leaders were discouraging.
Mr. Ghosh accused Mr. Chowdhury of helping the BJP. Referring to the electoral understanding between the Communist Party of India (CPI-M) and the Congress in the 2021 Assembly polls, the TMC spokesperson reminded Congress leaders that they had failed to win a single seat in the Assembly elections.
The Trinamool Congress, the Congress party, and the CPI(M) are all part of the Indian National Inclusive, Developmental Alliance (INDIA). The CPI(M) leadership in the State has ruled out any seat sharing with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
