• Source:JND

Amid speculations over a possible merger, Congress is of the view that any such proposal must come from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC). According to sources cited by Jagran.com, Congress does not want to exert any pressure on the Mamata-led party.

The buzz started after Mamata Banerjee and senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi held a meeting on Tuesday. On Wednesday, a meeting took place between Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi and Abhishek Banerjee. The meeting, which took place at 10, Janpath, lasted for over 90 minutes, during which TMC acknowledged Gandhi's leadership.

Kunal Ghosh says more follow-up meetings likely

From the Mamata camp, Kunal Ghosh, the party spokesperson, reacted to the merger talks. Speaking to the media, he asked to wait until something takes place, actually. He said, "I have no comment on that. I won't say a single word about the meetings taking place in Delhi. This was a crucial meeting of the INDIA bloc, and subsequent follow-up meetings between the two parties are possible and are indeed taking place... Our leader is in Delhi; let something actually take place first, and then we shall see..."

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Ritabrata rejects the merger possibility

However, the TMC legislative party leader Ritabrata Banerjee, who now has the support of 64 out of 80 TMC MLAs, ruled out the possibility of a merger. 

While talking to news agency ANI, Ritabrata said that neither two-thirds of the members of the legislative party nor the same majority of TMC MPs in Lok Sabha are merging with Congress. He said there is no question of a merger at all.

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He said, "Regarding a merger, as for our legislative party, we are certainly not joining the Congress. The MPs in Parliament—more than two-thirds of them are not merging with the Congress either. So, who is merging with whom? As far as we are concerned and based on what I know, the MPs aren't going, we aren't going, the municipal representatives aren't going, the Zilla Parishad members aren't going, and the Panchayat members aren't going. So, who is going? There is no question of a merger at all."


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