Congress demands 98 seats in West Bengal assembly polls

Banerjee''s detractors including Deepa, who is the wife of former union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, had claimedthat Congress had sacrificed a lot in seat-sharing in 2009 LokSabha election. The Congress had fought for 14 seats, whileTrinamool Congress contested in 25 seats, leaving one seat forits ally SUCI.

Trinamool Congress won 19 Lok Sabha seats, Congresssix and SUCI one.

In the outgoing assembly, Congress has 19 MLAs andTrinamool 36.

Earlier, Bhuniya stressed the need for a "largeranti-Left Front alliance" before the assembly elections inWest Bengal.

Three parties - Congress, PDCI and PDS - which hadrecently forged an alliance named United Secular DemocraticFront (USDF) vowed to work together.

The PDCI is backed by Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and PDS is abreakaway group of CPI-M.

While addressing the meeting, PDS chief SaifuddinChowdhury, a former CPI-M MP said, "There cannot be alliancewith people who have links with Maoists.""If there is a change, there should not be any revengeagainst CPI-M," he said.

The PDCI leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury said theopposition alliance should be on fifty-fifty base in termsof seat sharing between Trinamool Congress and Congress-ledfront that include PDCI and PDS.