TMC-Congress honeymoon over?

The honeymoon of Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance seems to be over as the two parties have failed to bring out a solution to the problem that centered round sharing of seats for two Assembly constituencies in Kolkata and have fielded their candidates separately. It’s surely a big blow to the newly formed alliance between the two parties which got such a positive mandate in the recent Lok Sabha election in the state. It is an indication that there has been lack of understanding between the two parties. Trinamool Congress, being the main opposition party in the state wants its dominance in all possible corners of the state and on the other hand, a rejuvenated Congress party wants to make its presence felt in the state political scenario in a bigger way.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Congress have been so hard on its stand of fielding candidate from at least one of the constituencies is its presence in the area. One of the two constituencies where the by-poll will take place is the Sealdah constituency, which has always been dominated by Soumen Mitra, one of the veteran members of the Congress party. Though, some inner conflict with other parties had forced Soumen Mitra to launch his own party ‘Pragatishil Indira Congress’ and join the TMC latter, he has always been a hard-core Congress man. On the other hand Bowbazar is the constituency of Sudip Bandhopadhyay, who was a Congress MLA even before the alliance was formed by the two parties before the last Lok Sabha election. So one cannot really ignore their demand of fielding a candidate for at least one seat.

But the Trinamool Congress chief and the railway minister seems to be in no mood to go for any understanding, specially because of the difference of opinion that he had with the UPA govt over the Land Acquisition Bill in the Parliament last week. Without any consideration on the issue, her party on Wednesday fielded Shikha Mitra, wife of Soumen Mitra from Sealdah and Swarna Kamal Saha from Bowbazar. Though the Congress party is saying that there are still some scope of discussing on the matter and Ms Banerjee has ultimately agreed to sit with the home minister P Chidambaram and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, it has fielded Pradeep Ghosh as its candidate for both the seats. As the by-poll is scheduled to be held on August 18, perhaps it’s not too late to find out a solution to the problem, but even if something positive comes out, the TMC-Congress alliance might not seem to be the same big thing as it appeared to the people of the state during the Lok Sabhac election.