With the Congress yet to take a decision on the seats offered to it by Trinamool Congress for the West Bengal Assembly polls, a senior Congress leader today said the TC’s unilateral announcement of the candidates list was an insult to his party president Sonia Gandhi.
“Is not (the unilateral announcement of candidates) an insult to our party president Sonia Gandhi? What was the harm if the Trinamool Congress had waited for two days?” Murshidabad District Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said.
Describing the Trinamool Congress announcement of candidates as a ‘deliberate design’ to scuttle the poll alliance and blame the Congress for it, Mr. Chowdhury said that there will not be any alliance between the two parties in Murshidabad.
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He accused the Trinamool Congress of trying to make the Congress irrelevant in the State and take all credit for the ouster of the Left parties from power.
“If someone wants to suffocate us and thinks we will allow that, it will not happen. This is my personal opinion. Our party High Command may remove me from the party or take away my membership of Parliament. I don’t care,” he said.
Meanwhile, WBPCC chief Manas Bhuniya, accompanied by some district Congress presidents, left for Delhi today to discuss the issue with the party High Command.
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Party sources said that Dr. Bhuniya is carrying a list of 90 seats which the party wants to contest in the assembly polls.
Yesterday, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee announced a list of 228 candidates, leaving 64 seats to the Congress.
Giving the Congress till Monday evening to announce its candidates in the 64 seats, Ms. Banerjee said that if the Congress failed to do so within the deadline, she would announce her own list of nominees for those seats.