Congress-Trinamool set out seat-sharing talks, despite impediments
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New Delhi: The grand old party is in for a seat-sharing deal with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress despite previous attempts for rapprochement hit a blind alley.
This move comes as the Congress leadership pulled off deals with Aam Aadmi Party and Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, NDTV reported.
The report citing sources said that the Congress is aiming to bag at least five of Bengal's 42 seats in Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress’ deal with AAP and SP, although seemingly successful for the party in terms of strengthening alliance against the BJP, is not wholly beneficial because the Congress has to part with seats where it is the main opposition.
The deals could mean that the Congress has to give away two seats in Assam and one in Meghalaya.
The congress leadership, according to the report, is upbeat about the onset of talks which the party sources termed as in ‘positive direction’, adding that ‘If consensus is reached, an announcement will be made soon.’
In Bengal, though the party is looking for at least five seats, it is toying with the idea of getting one more seat.
The number of seats that the Congress is demanding is four more than Mamata Banerjee’s last offer.
The trajectory of the party’s demands for seats shows a fall in numbers from the previous eight to 14 seats.
Though it has scaled down to 6 seats, it is yet to see if TMC chief accepts the terms; the report said that the demand has provoked Banerjee.
Banerjee told a meeting in Malda earlier this month that she had offered two MP seats, and ensured victory but the Congress ‘ want more seats’ to which she said ‘Now I'm not going to give a single seat'.
Subsequently, she announced putting on hold her membership in the INDIA bloc, saying that she would consider it based on the outcome of the election.
Seats that the Congress aims to contest are Behrampur, Malda South, Malda North, Raiganj and Darjeeling alongside Purulia, which TMC is unlikely to part with, according to the report.
