NEW DELHI: A day after the INDIA bloc meeting, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday asked TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee to rejoin the Congress along with her remaining MLAs and MPs. However, the invitation came with a condition of “leaving behind her baggage”, an apparent reference to her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.A day after Mamata attended the INDIA bloc meeting in Delhi, Chowdhury said, “There is no need for any separate entity at this moment. Not much is left of the TMC after its defeat in the assembly elections.”“We would urge Mamata Banerjee to join the Congress along with all the leftover MLAs and MPs. I will also make this appeal to the Congress high command that let her rejoin the party. We would accept her leadership in Bengal and work with her,” he added.Chowdhury also urged the Congress high command to facilitate the merger and said that Mamata should, as a gesture of cooperation similar to the October 6 Nandigram assembly bypoll, extend support to the Congress candidate in Rejinagar.“As a friendly gesture, just as she has supported the Congress candidate in Nandigram, she should also extend support to the Congress candidate in Rejinagar,” he said.“As she has taken shelter in the Congress-led INDIA alliance, she should join the party. In Bengal, we would work under you in Congress,” he added.This comes a day after Mamata Banerjee, following the INDIA bloc meeting in Delhi, asserted that the opposition alliance was “very much united” as she sought to project a united opposition front while demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.The developments come as the TMC faces one of its deepest organisational crises since its formation following the West Bengal assembly election results, with separate rebellions emerging in its legislative and parliamentary wings.Within weeks of the election verdict, the TMC legislature party split, with 58 rebel MLAs backing expelled leader Ritabrata Banerjee as their leader of the opposition. The assembly speaker subsequently recognised the rival bloc.The rebellion was followed by a parallel churn in the TMC’s parliamentary wing, with rebel MPs also challenging Mamata Banerjee’s leadership.
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TMC MP Sougata Roy, however, said the party would consider any such proposal only if it came formally from the Congress leadership.“He (Chowdhury) has said what he felt. We have nothing to say. TMC is a separate party now. If Congress wants to come with an official proposal, we will discuss the matter in the party. The TMC is very much part of the INDIA bloc,” Roy said.Asked about Chowdhury’s “baggage” remark, Roy said no decision concerning the party could be taken without Abhishek Banerjee.“He is our leader and national general secretary,” Roy said.Mamata had broken away from the Congress in 1998 to establish the Trinamool Congress, which subsequently built its political identity by challenging both the Congress and the Left Front.
