Senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee said his party was keen on an alliance with the Congress, for which he even went to meet Rahul Gandhi at his residence at 6 am.

Abhishek, the nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and heir apparent to the party, asserted that Trinamul Congress candidates are the true representatives of the INDIA bloc in West Bengal.

"Had I not been serious, I would not have rushed to Rahul Gandhi's residence in Delhi at 6 am. We were willing to have an alliance with the Congress in Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, and despite state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's barbs at our party for months, we did not react for a long time," he said on Saturday.

"We gave Congress time till December but we could not wait indefinitely as we had to make preparations. Till December 31, 2023, not a single spokesperson of our party, including Mamata Banerjee, reacted to what Choudhury was saying," he added.

Banerjee, the MP of Diamond Harbour, said the seat-sharing talks failed because of the state Congress' belligerence.

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