The Trinamool Congress has said that Adhir Chowdhury, the president of the Bengal Pradesh Congress, has diminished the chances of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance in Bengal. A day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ruled out any electoral alliance with the Congress, accusing it of not only ignoring her at the instance of the CPI(M), senior TMC leader Derek O'Brien said on Thursday that, apart from the BJP, against which the INDIA alliance had been formed, Adhir Chowdhury was the person who undermined the anti-saffron coalition in the state.
In an apparent reference to Chowdhury's previous remarks that the Congress was not dependent on the TMC, O'Brien said the AICC member was "speaking the language of the BJP," reiterating, "The three reasons for the alliance not working in Bengal are Adhir Chowdhury, Adhir Chowdhury, and Adhir Chowdhury."
Not only did O'Brien, the TMC spokesperson, express this sentiment, but Kunal Ghosh, another TMC spokesperson, also stated, "The main disrupter of the INDIA Alliance in Bengal is Adhir Chowdhury, who has been dancing to the tunes of the Left, which itself has zero seats in Bengal. We are relieved and happy because now we will be able to tell the secular voters to choose either between TMC and the Congress-Left, who are zero in Bengal. Zero and zero make for zero only. Adhir Chowdhury is batting for the BJP. Tomorrow, the people of Bengal will not spare him."
While Chowdhury had previously called Banerjee an "opportunist personality who herself cannot remember when she spoke the truth last time," one of his close confidants and former Bengal Minister Manoj Chakrabarty added an appellation for the Chief Minister, calling her a "dalal" or agent of the BJP in INDIA who was "leaking messages to the BJP" to save her and her family's skin.
Another senior PCC leader, Soumya Aich, also attacked Banerjee for "literally decimating" the Congress "not through elections but by engineering defections in our party using the police and her goons." Another PCC leader, Kaustav Bagchi, said, "Joining hands with the TMC will be hara-kiri in Bengal, as the revival will be lost. The Congress votes will then go to the Left and even the BJP."
Against this backdrop, a majority of the PCC leadership, with a few exceptions like Malda South MP AH Khan Chowdhury, were inclined towards an alliance with the Left, which had recently experienced a significant revival by winning about 21 per cent of the votes, just behind the BJP, in the rural elections last year.
However, the State Congress demanded at least 6-8 seats if an alliance were to be imposed on the State party.
They sought Darjeeling, Raiganj, Malda North, Malda South, Murshidabad, Jangipur, Behrampore, Basirhat, and Purulia. The TMC, on the other hand, was not willing to concede Malda South and Behrampore, presently held by Khan Chowdhury and Adhir.