By IANS,
Kolkata: Attacking Trinamool Congress for the collapse of the seat adjustment talks with the Congress for the coming civic polls in West Bengal, Finance Minister and state Congress chief Pranab Mukherjee Tuesday said nobody should expect his party to wind up in the state for the sake of an alliance.
In a broadside against Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, whom he did not name, Mukherjee said: “If somebody ignores us, we have nothing to say about it. But even the Britsh could not finish the Congress. Thousands of our party workers embraced martyrdom in fighting the British. Nobody should forget the Congress’ rich history”.
Addressing a public meeting in the northern part of the city in support of Congress candidates for the May 30 Kolkata Municipal Corporation elections, Mukherjee took a pot shot at Banerjee saying: “We want to win as many seat as we can. But if we lose, we are not going to scream that the polls have been rigged. We will accept the verdict of the people in all humility”.
Banerjee has time and again in the past attributed her party’s electoral defeats to “rigging” by the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).
Mukherjee said his party had sacrificed a lot last year for the sake of an alliance with the Trinmool against the ruling CPI-M-led Left Front.
“We surrendered most of the seats to our alliance partner in the Lok Sabha elections because we knew people wanted an alliance against the LF. So despite deep resentment in our party, I ensured that Trinamool got to contest two-thirds of the seats. What did we gain from the alliance? Nothing. But we told our workers that we need to make sacrifices for the sake of the alliance”.
Earlier, Mukherjee ruled out any effect at the centre or next year’s state assembly polls of the collapse of the poll alliance with the Trinamool Congress for the civic elections.
“It would not be correct to equate the municipal polls with the Lok Sabha or assembly elections. In municipal polls, the issue is civic amenities, not politics. But Lok Sabha and assembly polls are much bigger stages,” he told reporters here.
Mukherjee said his party had tried to enter into a seat adjustment with the Trinamool for the May 30 municipal polls, but it failed.
“It’s unfortunate. But we don’t want to blame anyone. We want to win the maximum number of seats. There is no need to make any advance prediction of the post-poll situation,” he said.
Noting he had only taken part in the initial discussions with Banerjee for the municipal polls tie-up, Mukherjee, however, took responsibility for the way the seat adjustment parleys proceeded finally resulting in the two parties going their own way. “Though I was not present in the talks, whatever has happened is my responsibility. Those who took part in the discussions consulted me regularly.”
The two parties have failed to forge alliances in none of the 82 civic bodies including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) which are slated to go to polls.