W Benagal elections: PM to camapaign with Mamata Banerjee

NEW DELHI: After settling for a raw seat-sharing deal in West Bengal Assembly elections, the Congress will field Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to jointly campaign with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in central Bengal - where Congress has had no presence and has been nudged out by the regional ally.

The Prime Minister is likely to address a joint rally with Banerjee in Howrah or Kolkata or Kharagpur in the third phase of campaigning in West Bengal. Interestingly, the Congress is not fighting in a single constituency in Howrah or Kolkata districts. The fight over Kolkata was bitter as Banerjee had refused to even give Congress' sitting MLAs a ticket. Her logic was that delimitation exercise had reduced the number of constituencies in Kolkata from 22 to 11 and Trinamool has had to accomodate its own aspirants from Kolkata in other constituencies.

The exact date of the joint rally has not been finalised yet but it is likely to be between April 23 and 27. Speaking to ET, Congress' state incharge Shakeel Ahmed said, "The Prime Minister is going abroad from April 11 to 17. The second phase of campaigning would be over on April 18. So we will have a joint rally in the third phase. The meeting would be in Howrah or Kolkata or Kharagpur. The modalities are being worked out."

Ahmed did not rule out the possibility of a joint rally of Sonia Gandhi and Banerjee. "This has not been finalised yet because the campaigning schedules of both the leaders have to match." Congress is facing a very tough task as a majority of the constituencies it is contesting - 48 of 65 - are going to polls in the first two phases. The use of loudspeakers has been banned because of state board examinations till April 13. "Our main campaigners like Sonia ji and Rahul ji and P Chidambaram have only two and a half days to campaign in the first phase," Ahmed said.