A day after TMC chief Mamata Banerjee met Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee met Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition, with sources saying that the meeting was to discuss the coordination in the INDIA bloc.
Senior leaders in both parties maintained that the meeting was to discuss the INDIA bloc. “It is to discuss how the bloc goes ahead,” said a TMC leader.
The meeting between the two top leaders comes a day after the West Bengal CID on Tuesday conducted searches at the TMC’s central party office in ’s Kalighat and at the office of TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Camac Street as part of its investigation into the alleged Assembly signature forgery case.
Since the results of the elections in West Bengal were announced, the TMC has been grappling a crisis while it deepened on Monday, with the rebellion among the party’s MPs. The rebel camp has claimed that at least 20 of the party’s 28 Lok Sabha MPs have decided to form a separate bloc and align with the BJP-led NDA.
Since the crisis, the relationship between the Congress and TMC has become better with Mamata herself leading from the front on making sure the Congress knows its importance in the INDIA bloc. During Monday’s INDIA bloc meeting, Mamata was one of the few leaders who defended the Congress when other allied criticized the grand old party.
