Congress, Trinamool will fight Bengal polls together: Pranab

BURNPUR(WB): Brushing aside speculations of tension with ally Trinamool Congress, senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee today said the two parties would form an alliance to fight the 2011 Assembly election.

"No, there is no tension. There is an alliance between Congress and Trinamool Congress. In the last Lok Sabha election the parties had fought together after forging an alliance. There will be an alliance in the Assembly polls too," Mukherjee, also the Union Finance Minister, told reporters here.

On December 20, Trinamool Congress leader Partho Chattopadhyay threatened to go it alone in the Assembly election next year following former union minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi's wife Deepa's accusation that Mamata Banerjee was running a 'disrespectful' alliance.

However, the the next day Banerjee clarified that she had not said her party would contest on its own, but it was for the ally to decide.

"I have not said we will go it alone in the Assembly elections. But, our options are open. We are a regional party, the Congress is the larger party. They have to decide," the Railway Minister had said.

Deepa Dasmunshi is the Congress MP from Raiganj in West Bengal.