KOLKATA: Ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls, Trinamool Congress MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay on Sunday, claimed Congress president Sonia Gandhi has no news about a possible alliance between her party and the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal.
However, raising the pitch for alliance talks in the run up to the polls, WB Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury issued a statement on Sunday evening, asking all the democratic and secular forces to join hands.
Talking to reporters, Bandyopadhyay claimed, “While returning from New Delhi, I met Soniaji and asked her about a probable alliance; she instead asked me whether any such alliance was happening. She told me that no such news has reached her so far.
It is apparent that such an alliance is not taking place. There is some campaign regarding seat adjustment at the state- level between the two parties, but as per my knowledge there is no alliance.”
Later in the evening, Chowdhury issued a statement asking the democratic and secular forces to join hands in Bengal.
“I am inviting all the democratic and secular forces in Bengal to come together in order to preserve the democratic values and to establish the rule of law in the state,” the statement said quoting Chowdhury.
Political observers said he was reiterating his earlier call for an alliance between the CPI(M)-led Left Front and other non-TMC, non-BJP forces in the state to take on the ruling TMC.
PTI