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Congress ready for tie-up with Trinamool

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: West Bengal Congress leadership here decided on Saturday to go in for an alliance with the Trinamool Congress for the coming Lok Sabha polls provided the latter severed its ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and remained that way even after the elections.

The proposed alliance will also have to be forged on “honourable” terms and not at the cost of the party’s interests, the coordination committee of the State Congress asserted.

The matter was discussed at a meeting of the coordination committee presided over by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is also president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of West Bengal, Mohsina Kidwai attended the meeting.

The decision has been communicated to the party’s high command for its formal endorsement.

The onus is now on the Trinamool to accept the terms set by the Congress for an alliance to throw a joint challenge to the might of the Left Front in the coming polls — a move that the leadership of both the parties believe will bolster either’s electoral prospects.

The Congress’s recent decision to withdraw its candidate for the Bishnupur (West) Assembly bypoll on February 26 was a message to the Trinamool leadership of the need to take to its logical end the process that has been initiated to form an alliance with it, the working president of the State Congress, Pradip Bhattacharjee, said.

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