After ignoring Mamata Banerjee, Congress-Trinamool seat talks again: Sources

Congress is still pushing for one more seat in West Bengal.

New Delhi:

After sealing the seat-sharing deal with Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party, the Congress is aiming for a hat-trick, with a new formula for Mamata Banerjee. Sources said the party is expected to get five of the 42 seats in Bengal. On the downside – as in the deal with AAP and SP – Congress may have to give up seats in states where it is the main opposition. This may include two seats from Assam and one seat from Meghalaya.

But for now, the good news is that talks have resumed and are moving in a positive direction, Congress sources said. “If a consensus is reached, an announcement will be made soon,” he said.

However, the party is still pushing for one more seat in Bengal – four more than Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s previous offer.

This is a big decline for Congress. The party started with eight to 14 seats and then gradually this figure kept decreasing. But it was its insistence on six seats that provoked the flamboyant Chief Minister, who in no uncertain terms told the Congress not to go too far.

“I told the Congress ‘You don’t have a single MLA here, I am offering two MP seats and we will ensure your victory on those two seats.’ He said, ‘No, we want more seats.’ I said, ‘Now I am not going to give even a single seat’,” Ms Banerjee had said at a meeting in Malda earlier this month.

Then, for good measure, she said she was putting her membership of the India Bloc on hold and would review the matter based on the results after the elections.

Sources said the Congress is hoping to compromise on seats that are currently held by the BJP – one of them being in the BJP stronghold of North Bengal. This is in addition to Mamata Banerjee’s offer – Berhampur and Malda South where she had won in 2019.

The seats on which Congress wants to contest and which Trinamool can give to them are Behrampur, Malda South, Malda North, Raiganj and Darjeeling. Congress also wants Purulia but its chances seem less.

Party sources indicated that despite its public stance, Trinamool is not actually expected to win back the North Bengal seats.

For the last few days, with the intervention of its central leadership, Congress has been rapidly finalizing the deals lying in the backlog.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has personally contacted Akhilesh Yadav and accepted SP’s offer of 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh. And today, after a meeting at Rahul Gandhi’s residence, which was attended by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and others, sources said the broad outlines of seat sharing with AAP have been finalized.

In Delhi, where AAP is in power, it will contest on four seats and Congress on three seats. In return, Congress will give two seats in Gujarat and one seat in Haryana to AAP. Congress is the main opposition party in both the states. AAP will give one seat to Congress in Goa.