‘Will provide outside support to INDIA bloc...’ says Mamata, gives caveat
TMC chief says she is ready to provide outside support to INDIA bloc but that doesn’t include the CPI(M) or the Bengal unit of Congress
Taking a slight shift from her earlier decision, Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday (May 13) said that her party will provide outside support to the INDIA bloc if it forms government at the Centre after the General Elections.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) in January had refused to form an alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls following disagreements between the two parties over seat sharing in West Bengal.
“We will provide leadership to the INDIA alliance and help them in every way from outside. We will form a government so that in Bengal our mothers and sisters never face a problem and those who work in the 100-days-job scheme, do not face problem,” Banerjee said on Wednesday.
She, however, gave the caveat that her definition of INDIA bloc in Bengal doesn’t include the CPI(M) and the Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury helmed-unit of state Congress.
“You must know this that the INDIA alliance – don’t count the Bengal Congress and CPI(M), those two are not with us. Those two are with the BJP. I am talking about Delhi,” she said.
Why TMC broke away from INDIA
Banerjee, whose party was among the 28 that joined hands to form the INDIA bloc with the purpose to unseat the NDA government, in January had refused to stitch an alliance with the Congress. Citing differences between the two parties over seat-sharing, Banerjee had said that the Congress had refused to accept the proposal given by the TMC. The announcement had come just a day before Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was about to enter Bengal.
“I had given them (Congress) a proposal (on seat sharing) but they refused it at the outset. Our party has now decided to go it alone in Bengal," Banerjee had said.
“Now we have decided that there will be no relations with the Congress in Bengal,” she said.
Sources report that the TMC had offered only two of the 42 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress based on its past performances.
