Trinammol entrusts Mamata with talks on seat sharing

Kolkata, Feb 2 (PTI) With Congress reportedly eyeingabout 100 seats for the forthcoming Assembly elections in WestBengal, the core committee of ally Trinamool Congress todayentrusted party chief Mamata Banerjee with the responsibilityof taking a decision on seat-sharing.

"With the 2011 Assembly elections approaching, ourparty has entrusted Mamata Banerjee with the responsibility ofdeciding the strategy for the polls, including decision aboutcandidates and talks with other political parties," Leader ofOpposition in the West Bengal Assembly Partha Chatterjee tolda press conference after the Trinamool core committee meeting.

"Mamata Banerjee can take the right decision at theright time. She also consults us before taking any decision,"he said.

Chatterjee, however, parried a question on whether theissue of seat sharing with Congress was discussed at the corecommittee meeting.

"Let us confine ourselves to the official briefing weare giving you."

Noting that it was decided at the meeting that an all-out effort would be made to oust the CPI(M)-led Left Front inthe Assembly polls, Chatterjee said his party would go tothe people highlighting the achievements of Banerjee as theRailway Minister and focusing on the overall failure of theFront during its 34 years of rule.

Trinamool Congress chief whip in Lok Sabha SudipBandopadhyay said although Chief Minister BuddhadebBhattacharjee had initially denied the existence of armedCPI-M camps in the Jangalmahal, he had to promise to the UnionHome Minister of dismantling such camps after nine people werekilled in a firing from the CPI-M camp at Netai.

Describing the incident as mass killing, Chatterjeesaid the Trinamool Congress would organise a massive rallyhere on February 20 to demand justice for the killers.

He said that on that day, rallies would reach herefrom Nanoor, Mongolkot, Keshpur, Nandigram, Singur and Netai,where party activists have either been killed or had facedCPI-M ''atrocities''.