New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC) Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev has urged the management of each the Congress and her personal celebration to work out a seat-sharing association forward of subsequent 12 months’s Assam meeting elections to mount a stronger problem to the ruling BJP.

Dev, a former Congress MP who represented the Silchar Lok Sabha seat from 2014 to 2019, cautioned that the Congress—the principal opposition celebration in Assam—stands to lose seats until it’s keen to make “sacrifices” to accommodate different opposition forces, together with the TMC.

The TMC is a member of the INDIA bloc of opposition events. Nonetheless, it isn’t an electoral ally of the Congress, which allies with the Left in elections in West Bengal.

Conceding that the TMC was a marginal drive in Assam politics, Dev stated the celebration was primarily eyeing contesting seats in Barak Valley—the southernmost area of Assam with a predominantly Bengali inhabitants—in addition to Decrease Assam, house to a big Muslim inhabitants, and Center Assam.

Assam has a 126-member legislative meeting.

Dev additionally blamed the Congress for the collapse of seat-sharing talks between the 2 events forward of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, suggesting {that a} lack of flexibility price the Opposition.

She stated the TMC wished to contest from two seats within the Northeast—Silchar in Assam and Tura in Meghalaya. And in return, the celebration was keen to put aside three to 4 seats for the Congress in West Bengal. Finally, the BJP gained the Silchar seat, and the Congress gained the Tura seat.

Whereas expressing assist for an understanding between the 2 events within the upcoming polls, Dev confused that the ultimate determination rests with the excessive instructions of each the Congress and the TMC.

“West Bengal and Assam elections virtually occur concurrently. So what is going to occur in Assam will rely upon (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee and what transpires in Bengal. But when the Congress, that is my view, doesn’t handle all these events, together with the TMC, in 2026, they stand to lose a number of seats. They need to discover a approach to enter upon some type of an electoral understanding offered the excessive command of Congress and our excessive command agree,” she stated.

Dev, who give up the Congress in 2021, comes from a household with deep roots within the celebration. Her father, late Santosh Mohan Dev, was elected to the Lok Sabha seven instances between 1980 and 2004 and in addition served as a Union minister within the Manmohan Singh cupboard.

Dev additionally served because the president of the All India Mahila Congress from 2017 to 2021.

Her induction into the TMC was initially seen as a major enhance to the celebration’s prospects in Assam. Nonetheless, that momentum has since waned, with the celebration grappling with inside factionalism. Two state presidents—Ripun Bora and Romen Chandra Borthakur—have stepped down in fast succession since September 2024.

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)