TMC trying to weaken Cong: Somendra Nath Mitra

The newly-appointed chief of the Congress' West Bengal unit Somendra Nath Mitra on Friday accused the state's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) of trying to weaken the party but said it is for the high command to take a call on an alliance with it.

Mitra, known as 'Somenda' in Bengal politics, said his priority would be to strengthen the Congress ahead of next year's Lok Sabha polls and thanked party president Rahul Gandhi for reposing faith in him.

He sent out a message against factionalism in the state unit and said he would like to take everybody along.

"My priority will be to strengthen the party organisation in the state ahead of next year's general election. The TMC has repeatedly made efforts to weaken our party by poaching our elected representatives. But we are confident that the Congress will fight against all odds. The Congress is the banyan tree of Indian politics," he said.

Asked whether the Congress would form an alliance with the TMC to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mitra said the party high command will take a call on it.

"I am neither authorised to speak on this issue nor to decide on this matter. If the party high command seeks our opinion, we will give it. We will abide by the party's decision," he said.

He, however, pointed out that the Congress suffered when it forged an alliance with the TMC in the past.

"In the past we had forged an alliance with the TMC but that did not serve any purpose for the Congress. Rather the TMC took steps to weaken our party in Bengal," Mitra, who was the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president in the 1990s, said.

He joined the TMC in 2008 and became a member of parliament the next year. He quit in 2014 alleging a breakdown of law and order in the state and returned to the Congress.

Mitra was named chairman of the party's campaign committee in the state on Friday by Gandhi, in a major shake up ahead of the 2019 polls.