Trinamool will go it alone in next Lok Sabha polls: Derek

Says the party will prefer to go it alone in the next Lok Sabha polls

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was not ruling out a future alliance with former partner Trinamool Congress, party MP Derek O'Brien today said they would prefer to go it alone in the next Lok Sabha polls as the people of the state were firmly behind them.

"The people of Bengal are with us. They have supported us overwhelmingly in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the 2011 Assembly polls, in the bypolls and for the recent Panchayat polls. "In the Panchayat polls, the party fought against Congress, BJP and CPI(M) and won 13 out of 17 districts. So, sir, Thank You, but no thanks," said O'Brien when asked to respond to Singh's statement.

"We would prefer to go it alone in the Lok Sabha polls. Our supremo Mamata Banerjee has already called upon regional parties to come together after the polls to form a government. A government which will be corruption-free and pro-people," said O'Brien.

Asked whether Congress would look to form an alliance with Trinamool for the upcoming Parliamentary polls, Singh had said: "In politics, there are no permanent enemies and permanent friends. And in many ways, a week in politics is sometimes an unusually long period of time... So, I don't rule out, for example, alliances."

After the break up with Congress, Banerjee had issued a clarion call for all non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to come together and form a Federal Front.