With its chances of a deal with the Trinamool Congress coming to a nil after Mamata Banerjee’s public pronouncement of solo fight in all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the next year’s general elections, the Congress national leadership has asked its Bengal unit to strengthen its organisation and prepare for a go-alone contest in the State.

Party national president Rahul Gandhi has asked Bengal Pradesh Congress president Somen Mitra to oil the party’s organisational machinery insiders said interpreting the instruction as a measure to augment the Congress’ brand value ahead of any alliance talks with the Left Front should it crop up.

Gandhi told Mitra and Gaurav Gogoi the AICC leader observer for Bengal to “prepare to fight on our own,” sources said. Mitra who held a 15-minute parley with the Congress president briefing him about the ground realities in the State said “we have been asked to strengthen our party organisation in the State and prepare the party to fight on our own in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.”

When asked as to whether the national Congress leadership would attend the Trinamool Congress-sponsored grand Opposition rally at the historic Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, Mitra said “we have only reported the ground realty to the leadership. As a regional leader I could not have given any advice to the national leadership on this count. I only told him (Gandhi) that the ground situation in Bengal is such that the grassroots workers do not want the Congress to join the rally.

“At the ground level the workers are fighting the Trinamool’s misrule and falling victims to their attacks every day. So they will be hurt and the party will suffer immensely if they see our leaders with those who are responsible for destroying the Congress in Bengal. Now it is their decision and we cannot interfere with that.”

The PCC president said he had briefed Gandhi about the Trinamool misrule and the threat of a rising BJP. “We have also told him how the Trinamool is trying to ignore the Congress’ achievements in the Hindi belt where we recently won the elections. He gave us a patient hearing and asked us to strengthen the organisation with a view to fight the elections alone.”

On whether there was any chance of the Congress’ holding the Marxist hand another PCC leader OP Mishra said a decision had not been taken but added “we have been opposing both the Trinamool and BJP in Assembly jointly and also we have been facing them together out on the field.”

Meanwhile in a meaningful development CPI(M) State secretary Suryakanto Mishra on Sunday said that it would be an act of folly if the people thought that the TMC would fight the BJP and vice versa.

“These two parties are in fact complementary to each other because they survive on different kind of communalism and suppression of the Opposition: Tripura and Bengal are two glaring examples,” he said adding the other secular minded parties should come together “to fight out these fascist forces as a prime national duty.”