Leaders ask Sonia Gandhi to ‘review’ seat-sharing arrangement.
Although negotiations for an electoral alliance between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress in West Bengal are underway, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee’s proposals about the seats she wants for her party and the ones she would leave for the ally has sent shockwaves in the West Bengal unit of the Congress.
Yet indications are that the Congress will agree to TC’s conditions because its top leaders want to forge an understanding with Banerjee that is both deep and wide.
On March 2, the two parties formed an alliance in West Bengal to contest the Lok Sabha elections against the ruling Left Front.
Top state-level Congress leaders today sent a letter to party president Sonia Gandhi asking her to “review” the seat-sharing arrangement with the TC.
Though Congress leaders in West Bengal are worried that Banerjee’s terms for seat-sharing will virtually erode the party’s presence in south Bengal, indications from 10 Janpath in New Delhi are that the party wants to concentrate on long-term benefits that could eventually lead to Banerjee’s return to the Congress fold.
A “marginalised” Banerjee had quit the Congress to float her outfit in 1997 and has since become the biggest threat to the CPI(M)-led Front.
The Congress had demanded at least 14 seats from Banerjee, including seven plum seats in south Bengal, considered to be Trinamool stronghold . Banerjee has offered 14 seats to the Congress. But these are mainly those where either the Left has been ruling for years or reserved category seats where the Congress will have to struggle to find suitable candidates.
Banerjee’s offer includes just one seat in Hooghly district — Arambagh — where the CPI(M) had won the last Lok Sabha election by a margin of over 300,000 votes. She has rejected seats to the Congress in Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Kolkata, Howrah and East Medinipore districts. Instead, she has offered Jhargram, where the Congress has not contested for the last 30 years. The Trinamool chief has also offered reserved seats like Purulia, Bolpur, Bardhawan and Jalpaiguri to her electoral ally.
Top state-level Congress leaders, the two vice-presidents Pradip Bhattacharya and Subrato Mukherjee, along with Congress Legislative Party head Manas Bhuiyan have been frantically seeking meetings with central leaders in Delhi for the last two days against the proposal considered “devastating and humiliating for the organisation”.
While the state leadership is trying to convince the party brass to allow Banerjee “review” her seat offering, the central-level Congress leaders may not press too hard for this. According to a state leader, the party may get two more seats after further negotiations. These are Krishnanagar, where Rahul Gandhi’s candidate Mohua Maitra has been shortlisted, and Bishnupur (instead of Bankura offered by Banerjee).
“The feedback from the party brass is that if Mamata Banerjee is given the lion’s share of seats and leadership of the party, she might come back to the Congress,” said a senior Congress leader from West Bengal.
The state leaders feel that if Banerjee’s terms are accepted, the Congress will have to part with a sizeable section of its base in south Bengal. “120 municipal elections, including that of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, will take place in 2010. In 2012, state assembly elections are also due. We will be left nowhere if this arrangement is accepted,” said a senior state Congress leader.
