INDIA hits Bengal wall: Mamata says no talks, will fight Lok Sabha polls alone

“Amar kono kotha hoyni, amar karoro songe kotha hoyni. Kono charcha nei. Mithe kotha (I have had no talks, no talks with anyone… no talks at all. It’s all lies). Absolutely wrong,” Banerjee said, while adding that the non-Congress regional parties were holding together.

Soon after Banerjee’s statement, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann said the AAP will not have an alliance with Congress in the state, and will contest all 13 seats on its own. “Desh mein Punjab banega hero, Aam Aadmi Party 13-0 (Punjab will be the country’s hero. AAP will win 13-0),” Mann said.

In her remarks, coming a day before Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra enters Bengal, Banerjee underlined that the Congress had declined her offer of 2 seats in the state. “My initial proposal has already been rejected by them. Then our party took a decision that we will fight alone in Bengal. We are a part of the INDIA alliance. They are doing a rally (Yatra) here… Even as a matter of courtesy, did they even once inform us, say, ‘Didi, I am coming to your state’. I have no relations with the Congress as regards Bengal.”

“All India ki korbo, na korbo after election bhabbo (Nationally, what we will do, not do, we will think after the elections). We are a secular party, we will do what is needed to thwart the BJP. But right now there are no discussions (on seat-sharing),” Banerjee said.

The INDIA alliance did not involve just one party, she said. “Regional parties will stay together as one. We have said that the Congress can fight 300 seats and the regional parties will fight in the rest. The Congress should not interfere there. But if it does, we will see what is to be done.”

Mann said that the Lok Sabha candidates in Punjab will be chosen on winnability. “We have got a list of 40 probables, out of which 13 will be selected. We will get them surveyed.”

The CM’s statement came as a surprise as lately he had been giving indications of softening his stance on the issue, hinting that the high command would make the final decision on an alliance with the Congress. On January 1, in a show of support for the INDIA bloc, he said, “We are fighting for the country. If the Constitution is saved, then the country will be saved. If the Constitution is saved, then parties will be protected.”

Recently, in another positive sign, the AAP and Congress came together for the mayoral elections to the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, which were put off at the last minute as the presiding officer claimed to have taken ill. Soon after the tie-up, AAP MP Raghav Chadha, the party in-charge of Punjab, said it marked the beginning of electoral cooperation within the INDIA bloc.

However, the Punjab Congress unit never reconciled to any tie-up with the AAP, accusing the Mann government of unleashing a “vendetta” against its leaders. Recently, the Congress began meetings in different constituencies of Punjab reportedly for a feedback on an alliance with the AAP, after which its Punjab in-charge Devender Yadav is learnt to have conveyed to the party high command that the state unit was strictly opposed to any alliance.

Mann’s statement came three days after he went to Delhi for a meeting with AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak and Chadha, along with other leaders.

Of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, the AAP currently holds 1, while the Congress has 6.

Banerjee’s statement came a day after Rahul, speaking to mediapersons in Assam on the sidelines of his Yatra, said that he shared a cordial relationship with her, that seat talks with the TMC were on, and that any differences were minor tiffs which could be easily solved.