Mamata Banerjee Urges Trinamul Leaders to Strengthen Presence in Murshidabad, Ignoring Congress MP
Closed-Door Meeting Addresses Seat-Sharing Concerns and Highlights Trinamul's Importance
Mamata Banerjee on Friday instructed Murshidabad-based Trinamul leaders to continue their ardent political efforts in order to secure the party's win in the district's three Lok Sabha seats, including Behrampore, home of Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
According to a Trinamul source, the party's chairman's directive from Friday's closed-door meeting at her Kalighat home resolved concerns raised by her Murshidabad party members, who were unclear whether they needed to depart Behrampore for the INDIA constituent Congress.
Nobody has any influence in Murshidabad. Trinamul will win all three of the seats in Murshidabad if you fight together. Mamata was cited as stating, "Just ignore him (Chowdhury) and strengthen party organization in the district," by a Trinamul leader in attendance at the meeting.
In the future, if anything occurs, we'll consider it. As of right now, you begin to hit the streets without allowing anybody any room," she allegedly told her Murshidabad coworkers.
Senior Trinamul officials including national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, state president Subrata Bakshi, urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim, and Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam were among the about 65 politicians in attendance, which included MLAs and MPs from Murshidabad.
A Trinamul leader claimed, "Didi has asked Hakim and Bakshi to oversee party affairs in Murshidabad."
Though she did not mention Chowdhury, Mamata allegedly voiced her unhappiness with the Bengal Congress leadership for targeting her.
Trinamul has refrained from commenting on Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders.
Mamata expressed her dissatisfaction with the state Congress and the Congress national leadership's tardiness in implementing the seat-sharing agreement. She threatened to fight her party's own campaign in Bengal's 42 seats if the Congress failed to recognize Trinamul's significance.
One of the most prominent members of the INDIA bloc is Trinamul. I said, "INDIANA." Let the Congress leaders give their (state) leaders in Bengal precedence if they so want. We want to run for all 42 seats, a meeting participant who was a leader stated Mamata.
Mamata had indicated that it was prepared to give up Behrampore and Malda South to the Congress, according to a source in Trinamul, but it also wanted seats in Murshidabad, Jangipur, Malda North, Raiganj, Darjeeling, Purulia, and Basirhat.
According to the source, "She stated that if the Congress continues to be unreasonable, there will be no alliance in Bengal."
Regarding the events of Friday, Chowdhury refuses to comment.
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.
