Kolkata ,UPDATED: Sep 1, 2023 23:31 IST
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was “upset” with the Congress party over its alliance with the Left parties in the state despite the formation of the INDIA bloc, sources told India Today on Friday. This comes after the third meeting of the INDIA leaders in Mumbai. The TMC supremo had left early without attending the joint press briefing by the leaders.
Earlier, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury ruled out any alliance with the TMC in West Bengal and said secular parties along with the Left and the Congress will take on the BJP as well as the TMC in the state.
After the panchayat elections in July, Mamata Banerjee had blamed the opposition parties in the state — CPI(M), Congress and the BJP — for the incidents of violence during the polls. However, the TMC chief said she did not want to “say much” about the Congress and the CPM as they are part of the Opposition bloc.
During the second meeting of the Opposition bloc in Bengaluru, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav raised the issue of the Congress’s Bengal unit clashing with the TMC, sources had told India Today.
In 2019, the Congress and CPI(M) both rejected Mamata Banerjee’s offer to come together to ‘jointly’ fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
