TMC set to fight Lok Sabha polls in Kerala: Mukul Roy

KOLKATA: After achieving the demolition of the red citadel in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress is all set to make electoral debut in Kerala in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and test the waters as well in several states like UP, Bihar, Assam, Tripura and some in the Northeast, a senior TMC leader today said.

Party sources said that it was expecting to do well in West Bengal by winning a majority of the 42 seats in the forthcoming LS elections.

How many seats it won in the parliamentary election was important in its effort to emerge as a key player in the national politics post-election, sources said.

Confident after a landslide victory in the recently concluded rural polls in the state, the party plans to make inroads into Uttar Pradesh and Bihar along with Northeastern states like Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, besides Kerala.

"We will also contest polls in UP, Bihar and Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura. The party has decided to field candidates in the Lok Sabha polls for the first time in Kerala," TMC general secretary Mukul Roy told PTI.

"I am going to Kochi on December 28. We have a small unit in Kerala. TMC had organised procession in Kerala on the Nandigram issue. We have decided to contest the coming Lok Sabha elections in Kerala," he said.