Mamata won't join INDIA bloc? Bengal CM's 'outside support' comment triggers buzz ahead of Phase 5

Ahead of the fifth phase of polling, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said that her party will support from outside the INDIA bloc if it forms a government in Delhi. "We will provide leadership to the INDI alliance and help them in every way from outside," she said while addressing a rally. 

Banerjee also claimed that the CPI and Congress are backing the BJP in Bengal. Her comment comes just days before the fifth phase of voting for 49 Lok Sabha seats across 8 states and Union Territories on May 20. Seven Lok Sabha seats, including Howrah and Hooghly, will go to polls in Bengal on May 20.  

The TMC and Congress are part of the INDIA bloc, but Mamata Banerjee ahead of the elections decided to go solo in Bengal. She, however, said she will continue to be part of the INDIA bloc at the national level. The seat-sharing negotiations between the Congress and the TMC fell as the latter refused to cede more than two seats to the grand old party.  

Days after this, West Bengal Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged that a tacit understanding with the BJP prompted the TMC supremo to "quit" the opposition. "Everybody knows here that an unholy nexus exists between the TMC and the BJP...I am asking her she should spell out why she departed from the INDIA bloc,” he told PTI in May.

Chowdhury claimed that Mamata Banerjee has time and again proved that she cannot be trusted. "She is an unpredictable and unreliable political personality...When the INDIA bloc came into existence, she started appropriating credit for naming the conglomeration. But after a few days, she started clamouring that she was going to abandon the INDIA alliance like Nitish Kumar. My question is what was the trigger for her to quit the INDIA alliance?"
 
Mamata Banerjee had blamed the Congress for the delay in deciding on the seat-sharing proposals of leaving two seats for the grand old party in Bengal. The seat-sharing proposals between the Congress and the TMC went haywire after the latter accused the grand old party of making unjustified demands without acknowledging the ground reality.

The Congress is presently contesting the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal as part of an alliance with the Left. While the Left Front is fighting in 30 seats, the Congress has fielded candidates in 12 out of the total 42 seats in the state. 

The TMC has repeatedly blamed Chowdhury, a fierce critic of Banerjee, for the breakdown of the alliance in the state and accused him of having a "tacit understanding with the BJP". 

(With inputs from PTI)