Congress to contest all 42 seats in West Bengal after talks with Left fail, says state party chief Somen Mitra

lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 19, 2019 16:10 IST

The Congress’s West Bengal unit on Sunday announced it will contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The announcement came after the Congress stopped its seat-sharing negotiations with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M) over its move to unilaterally name candidates for 25 seats on Friday.

West Bengal Congress president, Somen Mitra, said he was going to Delhi with the party’s list of 42 candidates even as the central leadership will take the final decision in this regard. “A section of our leaders felt insulted after the Left Front unilaterally declared its candidates while discussion on seat sharing was on.”

A Congress leader, who did not wish to be named, said as a national party, they cannot succumb to unilateral decisions. “Initially, we wanted to contest from Raigunj and Murshidabad. But we did not stick to our demand, following Rahul Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury’s intervention,’’ he said. “But Left Front has fielded candidates from Basirhat and Purulia as well although we said that we would like to field our nominees. This is unacceptable.”

CPI (M)’s Rabin Deb, who was involved in the seat-sharing talks, did not reply to messages.