Trinamool to contest all 42 seats in Bengal, including Congress's Berhampur

IN a snub to the Congress, which is a part of the INDIA bloc, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) is likely to field candidates in all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. This includes the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, where state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the sitting MP.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Trinamool's top brass with the Murshidabad district leadership.

Murshidabad district has three Lok Sabha seats -- Jangipur, Berhampur and Murshidabad. In the 2019 election, Congress won the Berhampur seat while the other two were bagged by TMC.

Chowdhury has been winning the Berhampur seat since 1999 and is considered a Congress bastion.

The decision will hurt the Congress as the party was looking for a bigger share of seats to contest as part of a pact with the TMC. Mamata Banerjee's party had initially offered two seats to Congress in West Bengal.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP took everyone by surprise by winning 18 seats in Bengal. Out of 42 seats, Congress only won two, while the TMC won 22 seats.

The Trinamool reportedly wanted the seat-sharing formula to be based on the performance of the parties in the 2019 election and in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls. The TMC had cited that Congress garnered a vote share of less than 5 per cent.

Last month, Mamata Banerjee had given a clear indication there would be no seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress or the Left Front in the state.

Addressing a rally, Mamata Banerjee said that the TMC would go alone in the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

"The INDIA bloc will be there across the country. In Bengal, the TMC will fight and defeat the BJP. Remember, in Bengal, only TMC can teach a lesson to the BJP and not any other party," the Trinamool supremo had said.