)
The TMC supremo, last evening, held a meeting with party leaders Mukul Roy and others at party headquarters here. According to sources, the internal assesment of the party presented to Banerjee projected 30 Lok Sabha seats for TMC out 42 seats in West Bengal. The exit polls too have projected a tally varying between 20 and 31 seats. TMC had won 19 seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll.
One of the key issues discussed yesterday was BJP's rise. "In no way is the Left increasing its votes in Bengal. We are sure about that. But how much BJP's rise will affect us, is the key question," said a senior party leader. Responding on a question on this, Mukul Roy stayed away from making any public claim. "We have reached out to the people with our developmental agenda. We hope we have been successful," Roy said.
However, the party is confident of increasing its tally despite the possibility of BJP's rise in the state at the cost of TMC's voter base. But it is a possibility that the BJP-led NDA will get a comfortable majority, which has been most disappointing outcome of the exit polls for TMC.
"We strongly believe, we will be third largest party. But even then we will be irrelevant if NDA gets 272 on its own,"said a senior party leader. A section of party leaders are in favour of being a part of the next government at the Centre. In fact, Mamata Banerjee too during her public rallies at times earlier had went to the extent of telling people that TMC will get back the Railway Ministry in 2014 and would take forward all the pending railway projects in the state.
The best case scenario TMC is hoping is that of forming a government at the Centre with other regional parties with outside support from Congress. The exit polls prediction of BJP's comfortable win seems has turned out to be a spoiler for TMC. Despite a decent projection of its own tally, May 16 is still going to be an anxious day for the TMC camp.
