'TMC unlikely to attend INDIA bloc meet on June 1 due to phase 7 polling'

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is unlikely to attend a meeting of the INDIA bloc on June 1, sources said, as it coincides with the last phase of voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

According to sources, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has convened a meeting of the INDIA bloc leaders on the afternoon of June 1, when the last phase of polling will be underway.

Sources in the TMC said the voting will be done on nine seats, including two seats in Kolkata - Kolkata Dakshin, and Kolkata Uttar, in West Bengal on the day which are crucial for the party. Other constituencies that go to polls that day in the state include Jadavpur, Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jayanagar, Mathurapur and Diamond Harbour.

TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and other top leaders will be voting on the day and hence will be unable to attend the meeting, a source said, also pointing out that the party has so far attended all meetings of the opposition bloc.

The source added that the TMC has conveyed this to the organisers.

The first meeting of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc was held in Patna on June 23 last year, followed by a meeting in Bengaluru on July 17-18, 2023, and then in Mumbai between August 31 and September 1, where the opposition parties adopted resolutions to contest the Lok Sabha elections unitedly.
 

The fourth meeting of the opposition bloc was held in Delhi on December 19. The next time the opposition leaders came together was in Delhi on March 31, when top leaders shared the stage at the "Save Democracy" rally held against the arrests of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren. A similar 'Ulgulan' rally was held in Ranchi on April 21.

The TMC has been part of all these meetings and rallies, and at the March 31 rally in Delhi, its parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha, Derek O'Brien, had announced that they remain a part of the INDIA bloc.

While the party, which is in power in West Bengal, does not have any seat-sharing deal with the Congress or any other INDIA bloc party in their home state, in Uttar Pradesh's Bhadohi, TMC candidate Laliteshpati Tripathi has been supported by ally Samajwadi Party.

Twenty-eight opposition parties came together to form the INDIA bloc. However, some parties such as Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) later switched over to the NDA.