Ekla Chalo Re for TMC in LS polls

The Trinamool Congress is most likely to go it alone in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Party chief whip and union minister of state for health Sudip Bandopadhyay told The Indian Express: "We are targeting all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal and we believe we will win them all. We will work according to that plan. Now it is for you to interpret whether we want to contest alone in the Lok Sabha elections or not.''

Bandopadhyay was speaking soon after he had led a TMC delegation to the dinner hosted by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday.

Earlier, Bandopadhyay told the media that West Bengal Chief Minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee had all the qualities to become the Prime Minister. "She tops the list of candidates who have the potential to become the Prime Minister of the country,'' Bandopadhyay said.

Political observers see this as an attempt to lob Mamata's name in the fray so as to gauge the general mood.

The TMC chief whip's assertion also assumes importance after BJP leader L K Advani had stated in his blog that the 2014 parliamentary elections will yield a non-Congress, non-BJP PM in the country and that the Congress will not bag more than 100 seats.

At a party rally in Esplanade on July 21 to commemorate Martyrs' Day, Mamata had declared that her party would go it alone in the panchayat elections to be held early next year.

The Trinamool Congress parliamentary party has already decided they the party will oppose the Pension Bill and FDI in retail as they were "anti-people".

The Congress, meanwhile, reacted to Bandopadhyay's with much vitriol.

"Let them fight alone. They will understand where they stand actually. I have already said we are ready to contest the panchayat elections alone and if need be we are ready to fight the Lok Sabha elections of 2014. But in that case, they (the Trinamool) will have to repent their decision,'' Pradip Bhattacharya, West Bengal Pradesh Congress president, told The Indian Express.

... contd.

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