The INDI Alliance seat sharing saga witnessed a pitfall after Trinamool Congress announced that it will contest all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. The jarring announcement came after rumours doing rounds that seat sharing talks were back on track between the parties. However, Trinamool dismissed all speculations and said that they can’t look for a thrid seat for Congress even with ‘Binoculars.’
Derek O’Brien, Trinamool’s leader in the Rajya Sabha, said, “A few weeks ago, the TMC chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated that Trinamool Congress is fighting all the 42 seats in Bengal. We are also in the fray in a few seats in Assam and the Tura Lok Sabha seat in Meghalaya. There is no change in this position.”
The declaration is a clear indication that INDI Alliance will have to overhaul it steps, which had finalised seat sharing with Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, and with AAP in Delhi, Gujarat, Goa and Haryana.
It could have been a good step ahead, had INDI Alliance could broker a deal in West Bengal , as the state sends the third highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha.
Updates of Thursday reveal that Congress lowered its expectations and reduced the number of seats it demanded from West Bengal to 5. It also planned to offer two seats to the Trinamool in Assam and one in Meghalaya. Congress believed that the talks were inclined towards progress. However, The conundrum at present leads to only one clear variable and that is Trinamool is not willing to bend. The West Bengal Overlord refused to give more than two seats to Congress, its initial offer and the number which Congress had won in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Mamata Banerjee believes that only TMC has the potential to take on BJP, the TMC will go all alone. “I told Congress… ‘You don’t have a single MLA here, I am offering two MP seats and we will ensure you win those.’ They refused. So I said, ‘Now I won’t give a single seat’,” Banerjee had said.
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