Bengal polls: Mamata's deadline to Congress

Kolkata:  Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee seems to be running out of patience with the Congress for not finalising the seat-sharing deal with her party for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state.  Bengal goes to the polls in six phases starting April 18.

With the Left having announced its list of candidates on Sunday, Mamata wants to hit the campaign trail quickly. NDTV has learnt that she has told the Congress to ink the deal today or she will go right ahead and announce her list by this evening.

Sources say the Congress wants her to wait till March 21, as party president Sonia Gandhi is out of the country, but the Trinamool chief is in no mood to oblige.

On Tuesday night, the seat-sharing talks between Mamata Banerjee and Pranab Mukherjee were inconclusive with Mamata not willing to give more than 62 out of the 294 seats. The Congress wants more or at least some substantially winnable ones.

Pranab Mukherjee flew down to Kolkata from Delhi with AICC leaders Shakil Ahmed and Janardhan Poojary on Tuesday specially to meet Mamata Banerjee.

But after a meeting that lasted for over an hour, Mukherjee said the talks were inconclusive and that they would talk again. He, however, did not announce any timeframe for the talks. The uncertainty means the two parties cannot announce their list of candidates and cannot begin campaign.