Congress disconnected with ground reality, TMC waited enough: Party leader Mukul Sangma

New Delhi: TMC leader and former Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma on Sunday hit out at the Congress saying his party waited 'enough' for a seat-sharing agreement with the Congress, but it appears the senior INDIA bloc ally is disconnected with ground reality.

The TMC on Sunday announced the candidate list for all 42 Lok Sabha seats of West Bengal, dropping a few sitting MPs and bringing in several new faces such as former cricketers Yusuf Pathan and Kirti Azad.

In a post on X following TMC's announcement, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said the Congress repeatedly declared its desire to have a 'respectable seat-sharing agreement with the TMC in West Bengal'.

In a video statement issued by the TMC, Sangma said 'We have waited long enough, the whole country can see. There was a collective intent to have single candidate from the INDIA bloc to ensure we put our strength collectively... But this did not happen.' 'If the Congress today says that the TMC has not waited and gone ahead with announcement of all 42 candidates in West Bengal, I think they need to be reminded of the fact that Congress is probably not grounded with what is on ground zero. There's a complete delink from the ground reality,' he said.

'Is it not a fact that they have gone ahead and announce their candidates for Meghalaya?' he said.

The Congress had on Friday announced its first list of 39 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, including both seats from Meghalaya.

Ramesh also said in his post, 'The Indian National Congress has always maintained that such an agreement (seat-sharing) has to be finalised through negotiations and not by unilateral announcements. The Indian National Congress has always wanted the INDIA group to fight the BJP together,' he said.