Pranab-Mamata to resume seat sharing talks on Friday

As the stalemate over Congress-Trinamool Congress (TMC) seat sharing continues, both camps have pinned their hopes on another round of meeting between Mamata Banerjee and Pranab Mukherjee which is likely to take place at Kolkata on Friday evening.

Union finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee is expected to come to Kolkata tomorrow evening and talks might resume after that.

Yesterday, Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, called up Mamata Banerjee to request her to wait till March 21, the day Gandhi will be back from abroad.

But, according to sources in TMC camp, Mamata is not willing to wait till March 21. If nothing conclusive emerges from her second round of meeting with Pranab Mukherjee, then she might announce her party's list of candidates immediately.

According to Congress sources, both Congress and TMC are eager to save the seat sharing arrangement, and Pranab and Mamata had held some talks over phone on Thursday.

The last round of talk which remained inclusive was held at Pranab Mukherjee's residence at Kolkata two days back.

It is learnt that Mamata had tried to stress the point that as a reliable ally of Congress at the centre, her party never been critical on issues like 2G spectrum scam, Commonwealth scam, price hike in petroleum products. Her party will continue to support the UPA-2 government.

But, in Bengal, she must have the last word, be it in the question of seat sharing arrangement or other issues.

So far Mamata has offered 62 seats to Congress. But Congress is not happy with that.

A source close to Congress leaders revealed, “We are not interested in mere number. We demanded some quality seats, which have been denied to us.” It is learnt that Mamata had offered no seats in four districts (Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, East Medinipur and South Dinajpore) to Congress, which was not acceptable to them. In other crucial districts like Hoogly, Nadia, North 24 Parganas and Burdwan she has offered Congress very few seats.

In Burdwan, Congress has been asked to contest from Katwa, Jamuria and Ausgram, while in Nadia, Hoogly and North 24 Parganas they were offered one each. Moreover, they were offered a number of seats in Junglemahal in West Midnapore and Purulia, where Congress has very little presence. The Congress has been insistent that two of their seating MLAs in Kolkata and South 24 Parganas must be accommodated in the list of candidates. Their assembly segments have been merged with other constituencies because of delimitation. Mamata has not yielded her ground yet.

The Congress has offered Mamata 10 seats from its quota in Murshidabad, Malda and North Dinajpur. In exchange, it asked for a few winnable seats in South Bengal. "Mamata must realise that her stakes in the alliance is much more than us. If TMC and Congress cannot enter into a seat sharing arrangement then it would play into the hands of CPI (M)," comments one Congress leader who does not want to be identified.