Divulging Trinamool's strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said her party would support the Congress "wherever it is strong", PTI reported. However, she stressed that Congress should reciprocate the same attitude towards the TMC if it wanted her support.
Banerjee proposed that Opposition parties in India should unite and support the party that was strong in its respective state. On the seat-sharing formula, Banerjee said strong regional parties must get priority.
"Wherever a regional political party is strong there BJP cannot fight. The parties which are strong in a particular region should fight together. I am supporting Congress in Karnataka but it should not fight against me in Bengal," Banerjee said while speaking to reporters.
The development comes days after the Congress secured a thumping victory on its own in Karnataka after 10 years, winning 135 seats and defeating the BJP in the only state it was in power in southern India. The BJP came a distant second, winning 66 seats, a sharp drop from the 104 seats it won in 2018.
While TMC and Congress are at loggerheads at the state-level in Bengal, Mamata is known to have good relations with Sonia Gandhi.
READ | Mamata Meets Akhilesh Yadav, Both Agree To Maintain Distance From Congress Ahead Of 2024 Polls
Interestingly, in March, Mamata held a meeting with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and both leaders agreed to maintain distance from Congress and BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Addressing a press conference, TMC leader and Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay had said the party would go its own way and stressed that the Congress should not believe it was the "big boss" of the opposition.
"We will go our own way, maintain distance from the Congress and the BJP. We are not talking about forming any third front at the moment... The Congress should not feel that it is the big boss of the opposition front," he told reporters.