Rahul's offer to Left didn't hurt Cong-TC alliance: Mamata

Clearing the air, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s olive branch to the Left for a post-poll tie-up did not hurt the alliance between the two parties in West Bengal.

“The TC-Congress alliance is intact and there is no adverse impact on the alliance by Rahul Gandhi’s comments. There is no confusion on the alliance,” Mamata said on her return from election campaign last night.

She accused the ruling CPI(M) of having launched a campaign to “malign” the TC-Congress alliance and asked the people of West Bengal not to be misled by “this propaganda”. Mamata’s remarks came in the backdrop of reports quoting her as saying that she would quit the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) if the Congress took the support of the CPI(M) to form a government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha polls.

Her party colleagues Partho Chatterjee and Dinesh Trivedi gave vent to their displeasure about Rahul’s overtures to the Left and opposed any alliance at the Centre that includes the Congress and the CPI(M).

PCC Working President Pradip Bhattacharya said, “There is no problem with regard to the alliance between the Congress and Trinamool Congress. A section of the media has created all the confusion. We have settled the issue”. Congress sources said two senior party leaders from Delhi, including AICC General Secretary K Keshava Rao, who is in charge of the party’s affairs in West Bengal, spoke to Banerjee on phone when she was busy electioneering and talked “positively” about the alliance between the two parties.