Reacting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent comment -- that he was not ruling out a future alliance with former partner Trinamool Congress -- party Member of Parliament Derek O'Brien on Sunday said they would prefer to go it alone in the next Lok Sabha polls as the people of the state were firmly behind them.
"The people of Bengal are with us. They have supported us overwhelmingly in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the 2011 assembly polls, in the by-polls and for the recent Panchayat polls. In the Panchayat polls, the party fought against the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India - Marxist and won 13 out of the 17 districts. So, sir, thank you, but no thanks," said O'Brien when asked to respond to Dr Singh's statement.
"We would prefer to go it alone in the Lok Sabha polls. Our supremo Mamata Banerjee has already called upon regional parties to come together after the polls to form a government. A government which will be corruption-free and pro-people," said O'Brien.
Asked whether the Congress would try to form an alliance with the Trinamool for the forthcoming Parliamentary polls, Dr Singh had said, "In politics, there are no permanent enemies and permanent friends. And in many ways, a week in politics is sometimes an unusually long period of time, so I don't rule out, for example, alliances."
After the break-up with the Congress, Banerjee had issued a clarion call for all non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to come together and form a Federal Front.
