All hopes of a ‘‘Mahajot’’ against the Left Front lie shattered now. A day after the Congress released its list of candidates, including for 40 seats where the Trinamool Congress has sitting MLAs, Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the party.‘‘Earlier we used to call the Congress the B-team of the CPI(M). But we see it has become the main team of CPI(M),’’ she said. Visibly upset by the Congress’s decision to go it alone, she pointed out that this would ensure a split in the anti-Left votes, thereby paving the way for a Marxist win.‘‘When we released the list of our 201 candidates, we did not field nominees for those seats which have sitting Congress MLAs. We did not want any division in the anti-Left votes,’’ she pointed out.‘‘But the Congress turned down our offer of Mahajot. And they did this for fear of a backlash from the CPI(M). Their compulsion is to the CPI(M) while our compulsion is to the people who will teach them the right lesson in the coming elections,’’ fumed Mamata.The Congress has already declared that barring a few seats which it would leave for partners of the alliance that it leads, it would field candidates in all other seats. The party stuck to its old stand that it was not ready to go for an alliance with the Trinamool unless Mamata broke ties with the BJP.Meanwhile, Congress sources said there are rumblings in the party over the list. Many of the ticket-seekers who did not get nomination are demanding that their cases be reconsidered.
