Even as Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Congress to resolve the seat-sharing issue, a number of her party’s prospective candidates hit the ground running and started putting up wall posters and banners as part of their campaign for the Lok Sabha polls.

Though Banerjee refrained from releasing her list of candidates during Tuesday’s press conference, party supporters wrote Sudip Banerjee’s name on walls in different pockets of central Kolkata describing him as a Trinamool nominee for the Kolkata North Lok Sabha seat.

In Suri town in Birbhum district, names of actress Shatabdi Roy also appeared on walls even though no official announcement has been made so far by the Trinamool Congress regarding her candidature. The writing on the wall projected the actress as the Trinamool candidate from the Birbhum Lok Sabha seat.

Trinamool sources said these candidates had taken permission from the party chief, who let them hit the walls to put pressure on the Congress leadership over the seat-sharing dialogue between the two parties.

A senior Trinamool leader said, “Our candidates did no wrong in putting up their names on the walls. Even though we have not released the list, all our candidates have been informed privately the constituencies they will be contesting.” “The Congress leadership was also given a list of the constituencies that our party will be contesting and there should be no dispute over the seats where our candidates have already put up posters,” said a Trinamool leader.

Lower rung in Cong low on alliance hopes
A section of the state Congress, led by Goalpakhar MLA Deepa Dasmunshi, today said it would be suicidal for the party to accept the alliance formula being offered by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, saying her party cannot be allowed to ride piggyback on the Congress. “We are being offered seats that are Left bastions, where the Marxists win by 3-4 lakh votes. Sonia Gandhi has said the aim behind building alliances is to enhance the number of our seats. But if we accept this alliance formula, there is no chance of this,” said Abdul Mannan, a former Congress MLA from Champadani in Hooghly district. Another leader, Shankar Singh, said if the Trinamool’s formula was accepted, the party would face a debacle of the kind it suffered in the 2001 Assembly polls.