KOLAKATA: A week after Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee announced that her party would fight the Lok Sabha elections alone in West Bengal’s all 42 Lok Sabha seats ruling out alliance with the INDIA bloc partner Congress, leader of the grand old party Rahul Gandhi said on Friday, the last day of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Bengal, that talks for a possible seat sharing deal is still underway and the issue between the two parties would be “resolved” soon.Asked why Congress was giving importance to the TMC when Mamata had made a loud and clear announcement that her party would fight alone, Gandhi said, “Even Mamataji is saying that she is in the alliance. Neither Mamataji has said nor the Congress has come out of the alliance. Seat negotiations are on from both ends. It will be resolved.”Mamata, shortly after Gandhi’s yatra left Bengal and entered Jharkhand, took a jibe at the Congress leader’s event that travelled through the Bengal district by describing him as a boshonter kokil (spring cuckoo) who has visited Bengal for a photoshoot.“You will never see some leaders throughout the year. They are never seen standing beside the people. But they appear like spring cuckoos before elections. After the photoshoots, they leave. Identify them. Do not vote for them. Voting for them means strengthening the BJP,” said Mamata without naming Rahul or any other Congress leader.The Bengal chief minister apparently referred to the CPI(M) leadership’s presence in Gandhi’s yatra event in Murshidabad on Monday. “The Congress leader, and CPI(M)’s state secretary Mohammad Selim and central committee member and other leaders were seen in photographs which were shared on social media platforms which the chief minister referred to as photoshoot,” said a TMC leader.
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