The West Bengal Pradesh Congress is in no mood to commit a “second blunder” by aligning with the Trinamool Congress in next year’s lok Sabha elections.
“We have burnt our fingers repeatedly and are not willing to repeat the same blunder once again,” senior PCC leader Abdul Mannan said on Friday.
There could be no alliance between the two parties as the rank and file do not want it, senior leaders including Arunabha Ghosh and Pradip Ghosh said, adding the “Congress should instead of eyeing a Trinamool prop try and build up its own lost base in South Bengal.”
The two parties that fell out of each other last year had fought the recently concluded panchayat polls separately.
Earlier PCC president Pradip Bhattacharya said, “There can be no alliance with the Trinamool Congress at a time when they are perpetrating endless violence on our men and framing false cases against our leaders.” He told a meeting of Congress students’ wing Chhatra Parishad that there will be no alliance with the Trinamool Congress in 2014 as friendship cannot stand in face of violence that our supporters and workers are being subjected to everyday.