Alliance versus alliance

As talk of an alliance between the Congress and the Left parties ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections gathers steam, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has spoken of a "stronger" alliance that she had forged with the people of the state. On the penultimate day of the Assembly session before the polls, Banerjee said in the House that her opponents were trying to forge an "unholy alliance", but her government had "already forged an alliance of the people". She urged the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Congress to make their alliance "official" and expressed confidence that her party, the Trinamool Congress, would win again "with the blessings of the people and the development work" her government had done in the last five years.