Congress welcome to federal front but with caveats: Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday issued an invitation but with conditions to the Congress to join the recently launched federal front. The latter could join the front if it accepted her formula of “one-is-to-one”, Ms. Banerjee said.

Speaking on a live video chat on social media, Ms. Banerjee indicated that she was not too keen at this stage to accept Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, arguing that her future actions would be guided by the people.

Targeting Opposition parties, Ms. Banerjee said the violence during the filing of nominations for the panchayat polls (which concluded on Monday) was masterminded by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

Seat-sharing formula

Speaking extensively about the future of the Federal Front, Ms. Banerjee said, instead of the TMC joining a Congress-led front in the run up to the 2019 election, the Congress “should” join her Federal Front as there was a precedence of such a front in the past.

“Congress can be part of the Federal Front but they will have to accept the one-is-to-one formula [of putting up one candidate of united Opposition against the BJP]. They [Congress] cannot contest in every seat,” said Ms. Banerjee. She underscored that a similar arrangement was in place when H.D. Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister.

“Federal Front will work with a Common Minimum Agenda. Even in the past Deve Gowda became the Prime Minister [under] similar arrangement. Whichever party wishes can support later,” she noted.

“We have to remember that in today’s context, Congress cannot do anything alone…and there are many parties like ours, like Mayawati’s, Sharad Pawar’s…Congress will have to coordinate,” she said.