Barely two days after Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee announced the 228 candidates for the coming Assembly polls, signs of dissent are evident within the party regarding ticket, for at least one of the constituencies that figure in the list.
The party's nominee from the Entally constituency in the city has refused to contest from there, claiming that he had been earlier assured ticket for another seat.
“I am not contesting from Entally,” Tarak Banerjee, a three-time MLA from the subsequently re-constituted Kashipur constituency, told The Hindu here on Sunday.
He said that following the de-limitation of the seat, he had indicated his preference for the Shyampukur seat, his home constituency.
“Party chief Mamata Banerjee said that I instead contest from Jorasanko, to which I readily agreed. But then I found that I had been given ticket for a different seat,” Mr. Banerjee said.
“Ms. Banerjee is the supreme leader of our party. But one gets to wonder whether or not there is a greater leader in the Trinamool Congress who can revise even her decision,” he added.
“None of the party leaders discussed with me the matter of contesting from the Entally seat. That I refuse to do so has been communicated to the party,” Mr. Banerjee said.
Sources in the Trinamool Congress said Mr. Banerjee could be replaced as the party's candidate for Entally by Colonel (retired) Sabyasachi Bagchi, a former senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ananya Dutta reports:
The future of the alliance between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress in West Bengal for the coming Assembly elections will be known on Monday — deadline set by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee to the Congress for announcing its candidates for the 64 seats that she has set aside for it.
In what looks like a re-enactment of the drama that preceded the breakdown of discussions over seat-sharing for the 2010 civic elections, Ms. Banerjee went ahead and announced the list of her party candidates on Friday before the two parties reached a consensus on the number of seats.
The Railway Minister also said she would announce Trinamool candidates for the remaining 64 seats on Monday, if an electoral understanding was not reached by then. A decision is likely to be taken following the return of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to New Delhi on Sunday.
