Kolkata:

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has told district leaders of the Trinamool Congress to be prepared to field candidates in all the three Lok Sabha seats in Murshidabad district, sources said.

Ms Banerjee’s instruction to her party was seen as posturing to its INDIA bloc partner Congress, headed by Mallikarjun Kharge.

The Congress is yet to respond on seat-sharing talks with the Trinamool for Murshidabad, which has three Lok Sabha seats, two of them held by Ms Banerjee’s party and one by the Congress.

Both Ms Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee were present at today’s meeting.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is the MP from Berhampore under Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency. He is fiercely opposed to any seat-sharing talks with Ms Banerjee’s party.

The other two Lok Sabha seats in Murshidabad constituency – Jangipur and Murshidabad – are under the Trinamool Congress.

The Trinamool Congress and the Congress’s seat-sharing talks have not made any progress so far. The Congress has also ignored the Trinamool’s deadline to close a seat-sharing deal in Bengal.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front in Bengal is also part of the Opposition INDIA bloc. The CPI(M) and the Congress appears to have aligned against the Trinamool and the BJP in Bengal.

The Trinamool last week decided to abstain from an INDIA bloc virtual meeting, and emphasised the necessity for the Congress to recognise its limitations in Bengal and allow the ruling party to spearhead the state’s political battle.

The Trinamool had previously allied with the Congress in the 2001 assembly election, the 2009 Lok Sabha election, and the 2011 assembly polls, leading to the ousting of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government of 34 years.

In the 2019 election, the Trinamool won 22 seats, Congress won two, and the BJP won 18 seats in the state.