Procedural work delaying deal with Trinamool: Cong

The Congress on Thursday sought to explain away the delay in clinching a seat-sharing deal with Trinamool Congress for the Assembly election in West Bengal by citing procedural work.

State Congress President Manas Bhuniya said it was taking sometime because of procedural work only. ''We have to bear with it. We want the alliance with Trinamool Congress in a very positive way. We are moving in that direction,'' Bhuniya told mediapersons in Kolkata after he party's state election committee meeting.

He said Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee was also discussing the issue with the Congress leadership in a cordial manner and 'we are very hopeful of the alliance'. His remarks came a day after Banerjee had threatened to announce the list of her party candidates if the Congress leadership failed to finalise the seat-sharing deal by Thursday.

The Trinamool chief, however, deferred by a day the deadline set by her for Congress to arrive at an agreement on seat-sharing deal.

The WB Pradesh Congress Committee held its election committee meeting during the day. 'The election committee meeting discussed the poll procedure only as a routine measure and not the alliance issue,'' PCC sources said.

The meeting was attended by five Congress members of Parliament from the state, except Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, as well as both the pro-alliance and those opposing it, the sources said.

Asked about the prospects of the alliance with Trinamool Congress for the polls, anti-alliance leaders, including Deepa Dasmunshi, MP, told reporters that they would abide by the Congress high command's decision.

Congress sources in Delhi had said Baneerjee has offered 62 seats to it, up from 58 she had offered initially, but the revised figure is not acceptable to the party. Congress leaders are expecting around 70 seats to be allotted to the party from Mamata. West Bengal Assembly has 294 seats.

Two Congress seats in Kolkata -- Kabitirtha and Garden Reach -- have disappeared after delimitation. And in their place two new seats were created -- Kolkata Port and Metiabruz. Banerjee wants two of these constituencies -- a demand not acceptable to Congress.