Bengal chief minister and Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee seemed to drop broad hints on Thursday that Bengal will remain outside the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) block against the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

“Banglay Trinamul Congress larhai korbe (In Bengal Trinamul will fight),” Mamata said addressing a public meeting at Deganga, in North 24-Parganas. “Only Trinamul can teach the BJP a lesson in Bengal and show the path to the country.”

Mamata did not mention the alliance. In the 2019, Lok Sabha polls, Trinamul had won 22 seats. Later, it won the Asansol parliamentary seat in a by-election, while another BJP MP from Barrackpore defected to the Trinamul.

Formed in July this year with around a dozen parties from across the country, the INDIA block has served little purpose yet at the national stage against the BJP except for protest marches.

In the recent state level elections held in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Congress went alone and lost all three (it was the incumbent party in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan). The Samajwadi Party had openly accused Congress of undermining the alliance as the party refused to part with a few seats with the INDIA partner in MP.

In Bengal, where the Left parties, mainly the state unit of the CPM and the Congress, have been in an off-and-on political relationship during elections, both the BJP and the Trinamul pose an equal threat.

According to sources, Mamata’s statement on Thursday could be an attempt to arm twist the Congress into settling on a seat-sharing formula on her terms. Her ideological rivals, the Left Front, has categorically ruled out any electoral adjustments with the Trinamul, despite the occasional joint protests on several issues in Delhi including the recent suspension of Opposition MPs from both houses of Parliament.

“The situation in Bengal is different from the rest of the country. Here, the fight is against both the communal BJP and the corrupt Trinamul,” said a CPM politburo member. “The Trinamul is not interested in fighting against the BJP. They want to protect their own interests.”

On Wednesday the Congress MP from Maldah South, Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury, had claimed that Trinamul had offered two seats, Maldah South and Berhampore (the last two remaining Congress citadels in the state), to the Congress.

Most Congress leaders in Bengal are also against joining hands with the Trinamul, though on some of the issues, like the cash-for-query controversy around the former Krishnagar MP Mahua Moitra, both the Congress and the CPM had come out in her support even before her own party.

“There is a lot of uncertainty on whether we will contest the polls in an alliance with either the Trinamul or the Left in Bengal. We want the air to be cleared. There is not much time left for us,” said a Bengal Congress leader.

Since coming to power in Bengal in 2011, the Trinamul leadership actively pursued a policy of poaching elected representatives and organizational leaders from both the Left and the Congress.

The Congress, the Left Front contested the 2021 Assembly polls in an alliance with the Indian Secular Front and ended up with zero seats. Only one ISF candidate Naushad Siddiqui won from Bhangor. The Congress nominee from Sagardighi, Bayron Biswas, won from the seat as a Congress-Left alliance candidate early this year but later defected to the Trinamul.

While in neighbouring Bihar, Congress leaders are keen on contesting under the INDIA block, in Uttar Pradesh the situation is tricky with both the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party singing different tunes.

On Thursday, BSP MP Malook Nagar set the condition that the BSP could join the alliance if the party chief Mayawati was propped as the PM face. Last week, Mamata and Delhi chief minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal had suggested Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the Prime Ministerial nominee, which the latter has turned down.