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‘I don’t know': Mamata Banerjee on upcoming ‘INDIA’ alliance meeting
The December 6 ‘INDIA’ meeting will be held after a gap of three months since the last one in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1.
Is Mamata Banerjee skipping the upcoming the meeting of the opposition bloc ‘INDIA’ on December 6? The West Bengal chief minister on Monday said she was ‘not aware' of any such meeting.
"I don't know, I have no information so I kept a programme in North Bengal...If we had the information, we wouldn't have scheduled those programmes. We would have definitely gone (for the meeting), but we have not received any information," ANI quoted the Trinamool Congress chief as saying.
According to ANI, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is said to have dialled his ‘INDIA’ alliance partners and invited them for a meeting, this a day after the grand old party suffered setbacks in the three Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. It had just one reason to smile with a victory in Telangana.
“Because of the elections, it (INDIA alliance meeting) was postponed. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has now taken the initiative to have that meeting. This meeting will build the confidence level of the (INDIA) alliance partners,” Congress MP Manickam Tagore told PTI.
It is believed that the December 6 meeting in the capital could feature seat sharing talks on top of the agenda. The huddle could be tough for Congress after the defeats in the just-concluded assembly election.
On the BJP's victory, Mamata Banerjee had said the saffron party's wins in the three states should not be seen as a disaster for the opposition as the victory margin is ‘thin’.
“Look at the figures. The BJP won by thin margins. It happened because of split in (opposition) votes. There should have been proper seat sharing," she added.
Talking about seat sharing, the elections in Madhya Pradesh witnessed a war of words between Congress and its ‘INDIA’ ally Samajwadi Party. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had accused the Congress of betrayal by not giving it tickets to contest in a potential alliance with the Congress in MP.
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INDIA or 'Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance' is a group of 28 opposition parties, including the Congress. The parties have come together to take on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by PM Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and prevent it from winning a third straight term at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
