By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal’s main opposition Trinamool Congress Tuesday said the party had no connection with any big political party in the state.
“Since the past four years, we are not attending any political programme organised by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). We are going alone with our own political agenda in the state and that is a reality,” Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Roy said.
“As on date, Trinamool Congress is neither with the Congress nor with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),” he said.
Asked whether the party is eyeing any political alliance in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Roy said that it was completely a policy decision and no party worker, individually, could say anything on this line.
“But, our party is constantly engaged in the endeavour of consolidating its base at the local level,” he added.
Meanwhile, the state’s ruling Left Front (LF) chairman Biman Bose demanded that the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee clarify whether she had officially left the NDA.
“She was a part of the NDA government at the centre. And I don’t know whether she has actually resigned from the alliance,” Bose told reporters here.
According to sources, Congress Tuesday withdrew their candidate, Gazi Mumtazuddin, who was nominated to contest from the West Bishnupur constituency seat in South 24-Parganas district in the coming assembly by-poll scheduled to be held Feb 26.
Welcoming the decision of the party’s high command, Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee said: “We will support the Trinamool Congress candidate in the coming by-election.”
The Trinamool Congress had fielded Madan Mitra for the West Bishnupur assembly constituency seat. Mitra, a youth and taxi union leader, had lost to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Rathin Sarkar by around 4,500 votes in the 2006 state assembly election.
Sarkar’s death necessitated the by-poll.
The CPI-M has fielded Iskandar Hossein for the upcoming by-election.