Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury
With the faction left without a candidate, Banerjee announced support for Congress nominee Milan Pradhan. In Nandigram, the Mamata faction’s candidate withdrew from the contest after meeting CM Suvendu Adhikari.
Chowdhury also appealed to the Congress high command to facilitate her return and said Banerjee should, as a gesture of cooperation similar to the Oct 6 Nandigram bypoll, extend support to the Congress candidate in Rejinagar.
Not much is left of TMC after its defeat in the polls,” said Chowdhury, a former state Congress president. He urged the former CM to rejoin Congress “leaving behind her baggage”, an apparent reference to her nephew Abhishek Banerjee . We would accept her leadership in Bengal and work with her,” Chowdhury said. “As a friendly gesture, just as she has supported the Congress candidate in Nandigram, she should also extend support to the Congress candidate in Rejinagar,” he said. TMC MP Sougata Ray, however, said the party would consider such a proposal only if it came formally from the Congress leadership. “He (Chowdhury) has said what he felt. TMC is very much part of the INDIA alliance,” Ray said. BJP’s Bengal spokesperson Debjit Sarkar said, “TMC was born out of Congress to fight CPM. “We are ready to fight Congress, TMC and CPM,” he said.
“There is no need for a separate entity now. I will also appeal to Congress high command to let her rejoin the party. We have nothing to say. TMC is a separate party now. If Congress wants to come with an official proposal, we will discuss the matter in the party. Now that TMC itself is out of office, they have no other purpose left.
Kolkata: Congress veteran Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday made a direct pitch to Mamata Banerjee to rejoin Congress along with her MLAs and MPs, saying there would be no objection to her leading the party’s Bengal unit.