Brushing aside the speculation of the break-up of alliance between the Congress and the Trinamul Congress before the 2011 Assembly elections in West Bengal, veteran Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said that the “alliance was intact”.
Almost putting an end to all the recent talks about the two parties going it alone in the polls, Mr Mukherjee assured that the two political parties will forge an alliance just the way they did in the last Lok Sabha elections to defeat the ruling CPI(M) in the state. “No there is no tension about the alliance. There exists an ‘alliance’ between the Congress and Trinamul Congress,” said Mr Mukherjee on the sidelines of a programme at Burnpur in Burdwan.
He added saying, “In the last Lok Sabha election, the parties had fought together after forging an alliance. There will be an alliance in the Assembly polls also and the Congress and Trinamul Congress will fight the Assembly polls jointly.”
On December 20, Trinamul Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee had declared that the party might go it alone in the Assembly polls after former Union minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi’s wife Deepa Das Munshi had accused that Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was maintaining a “disrespectful” alliance. On December 21, Ms Banerjee had thrown the ball in the Congress’ court and made it clear that it was for their ally to decide whether they wanted to go to the polls in alliance or alone.