Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has initiated internal discussions to strengthen the party in West Bengal, days before meeting crisis-hit Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Abhishek Banerjee.
The meetings came amid a series of exits from the TMC as it lost power in West Bengal last month after 15 years.
Gandhi met former West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who discussed immediate tasks for the party’s revival in the state, where it lost power 49 years ago in 1977.
Chowdhury, a fierce critic of TMC, told Gandhi that the Congress has a “golden opportunity” to revive itself in West Bengal, citing a large section of the people, particularly Muslims, who might turn towards the Congress.
The TMC has been firefighting since it lost power, expelling two of its 78 legislators and seeing 57 of them rebel and back Ritabrata Banerjee as leader of the opposition in the assembly.
The TMC has not ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal, something it has avoided since 2012.
