Kolkata

KOLKATA: Pradesh Congress president Somen Mitra made a call to RSP leader Kshiti Goswami on Monday, taking the seat-sharing talks for the Lok Sabha polls beyond the Congress-CPM binary.  

“Somen Mitra called me over the proposed seat-sharing between Congress and Left Front. I told him that our party has nothing against the effort to take on BJP and Trinamool. At the same time, I mentioned about the bitter experience we had in the 2016 assembly polls when Congress fielded candidates against the official Left candidate. Somen babu told me that he will see to it that there is no back-stabbing this time,” said Goswami.

CPM leaders, on the other hand, have appealed to the Front partners to part with one seat each. Accordingly, RSP has withdrawn its claim on Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury’s Behrampore seat. Forward Bloc has to part with Purulia.

It has asked for another seat from CPM in exchange. CPI has been urged to sacrifice the Basirhat seat to accommodate Congress candidate. CPM is likely to part with Kolkata Uttar and possibly the Cooch Behar seat. According to CPM sources, the Left Front may reserve at least 13 seats for Congress. They include Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jhargram, Purulia, Basirhat, Kolkata Uttar along with the four seats — Malda Uttar, Malda Dakshin, Behrampore and Jangipur — where Congress won in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Front partners have demanded that they should remain posted about seat-sharing. Congress and CPM leaders also met later on Monday over the developments.