Kolkata, Mar 21: Congress today finally agreed to a seat-sharing deal with Trinamool Congress after days of hard bargaining but on the terms set by its key UPA ally, settling for 65 seats, one more than Mamata Banerjee had offered initially, against its original demand for 98.
Unlike in Tamil Nadu where ruling DMK had blinked in the battle of attrition, Congress had to eat a humble pie in Bengal again like the last Lok Sabha elections as Banerjee,who had announced a list of candidates for 228 seats last Friday leaving 64 for Congress finally agreed to add only one more seat - Canning East in South 24-Paraganas--considered a CPI(M) bastion where Congress' chances of winning are slim.
The deal was announced within hours of a meeting between Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the latter's telephonic talk with Banerjee.Under the agreeement, Congress will contest from 65 seats while Trinamool will contest from 229 seats, leaders of both the parties said today.
Expressing happiness over the seat-sharing, Banerjee told a press conference here that "I am happy the seat-sharing has been finalised with Congress. We all want to work together to bring back democracy by ending Left Front misrule in the coming elections.
"Trinamool Congress will contest 227 seats, our ally SUCI two and Congress 65", Banerjee said minutes before releasing her party's election manifesto.She said that after minor alteration, Trinamool had given Canning (East) and Phansidewar constitutencies to Congress while taking from the latter Jamuria seats.
The development signalled Congress's yielding to Mamata's refusal to part with two seats in Kolkata in the bargaining -Kolkata Port and Metiaburz - and some more seats in Trinamool Congress stronghold in south Bengal where Trinamool has allocated to Congress 20 seats, out of a little over two hundred seats.
The seats allocated to Congress in south Bengal include those in Maoist-hit Keshpur, Garbeta, Bandwan and Binpur.Mamata, who saw to it that her party gets the lion's
share of the seats, said she had talks with Congress leaders Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmed Patel today.
''We will take a decision later,'' she said when asked if there would be a joint campaign between the two parties.Murmurs of dissidence were heard almost immediately after clinching of the seat-sharing deal as a section of Congress leaders alleged it was a "sell-out" to TC.Two party MPs from Bengal - Deepa Dasmunshi and Adhir Chowdhury - said they would not leave any seat in their respective districts of North Dinajpur and Murshidabad.
''It was a sell-out to Trinamool Congress the way the seat adjustment was reached by the party high command with that party,'' a Congress leader from Nadia district Shankar Singh said."We will not leave any of the 22 seats in Murshidabad district to Trinamool", Chowdhury said.
"Congress, they felt, was in a much better position in striking a better deal in terms of seats simply because Mamata cannot go back to NDA-fold for fear of losing minority votes which she cashed in on during panchayat polls.
''She had the choice of tying up with Congress or going it alone. This is where Congress should have pressed home its advantage. Instead, it was Mamata holding sway,'' he said.
Deepa Dasmunshi said the district leaders and grassroot workers were not happy about the seat-sharing accord. She said a meeting of district leaders would be held tomorrow where a decision would be taken after discussing with them. PTI
