Congress will fight the next year's assembly polls in West Bengal in alliance with the Left parties, state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said here on Thursday.
"The Congress has decided to contest with the Left parties against Trinamool Congress in the upcoming assembly elections," Chowdhury told reporters here.
The Congress had fought the last assembly polls in 2016 in the state in alliance with the Left Front.
Asked about the chief ministerial candidate, Chowdhury said, "there is no talk about the face of the Chief Minister in the Congress-Left alliance".
He also said the Congress and Left parties have not yet decided the seat-sharing formula. "We will decide on this together with the left parties," he said.
He said both the ruling TMC and BJP were a challenge for them.
Hitting out at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, he said she should "apologize to the Muslims" and "it is because of her that the BJP got a chance to establish a foothold in Bengal".
He said by her policies of containing the Congress and Left, "made BJP's work easy".
Asked about MLAs and leaders from other parties joining the BJP in West Bengal, he said BJP won seats in the last Lok Sabha elections and they got an edge on national issues.
"They got an edge on national issues but they will not get the same success in the assembly elections. To win more than 200 seats is just an imagination. Congress and Left parties have been agitating for several months," he said.
Chowdhury also said BJP is "short of local Bengal leaders".
"To compensate for that deficiency, leaders are being sent from Delhi. There is no such problem with us. We are fighting the state government on the basis of local leaders and workers," he said.
Sources said the process of forging an alliance with Left parties was overseen by Rahul Gandhi who held meetings with several leaders from the state including Chowdhury and Congress in-charge of West Bengal Jitin Prasada.
They said Rahul Gandhi also submitted a report to Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi. He talked to Chowdhury and Prasad today after which the alliance was formally announced.
( With inputs from ANI )
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