By IANS,
Kolkata : Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will launch the joint campaign of the Congress and the Trinamool Congress for West Bengal’s April-May assembly elections, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said here Sunday.
“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi will come for the joint campaign in North Bengal this month as the first phase of polls will be held there only,” said Banerjee after emerging from a meeting with union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
During the half-an-hour long meeting, Mukherjee and Banerjee are believed to have chalked out a plan for a joint campaign by the two parties, which are fighting as an alliance. The Trinamool will contest 226 assembly seats and Congress will fight in 65 constituencies of the 294-member assembly. The other three seats have been allotted to smaller alliance partners like the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI).
Banerjee also said that both Congress and Trinamool would request the Election Commission to allow them to use microphones for campaigning from April 9 as microphones have been banned till the ongoing higher secondary exams ends in the state.
Banerjee is scheduled to begin her campaign in North Bengal from either April 12 or April 13.
The six districts of North Bengal will go for polls on April 18.