The West Bengal Congress on Sunday clarified that it had not asked any of its state leaders to start talks for an alliance with the ruling Trinamool Congress, PTI reported.

The statement comes days after Congress MP from Malda (South) Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury, along with MLA Maniul Haque, met Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee. “I had come to discuss whether a grand alliance could be formed in our state, on the lines of the proposed central model to combat the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal,” Chowdhury had said after his meeting with Chatterjee on June 28. “I will submit my report to the party high command.”

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During the 2016 Assembly elections in the state, the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front had forged an alliance to fight the Trinamool Congress. In the last two years, nearly 11 Congress MLAs have defected to the Trinamool. Ten of them have not resigned as legislators after joining the ruling party.

“The AICC has not asked any of its leaders in West Bengal to start a dialogue with the Trinamool Congress for an alleged grand alliance,” the party’s state unit said in a statement, according to PTI. “The party in West Bengal under the leadership of Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has not received any intimation from the AICC to start a dialogue with the TMC. Whatever was done by Chowdhury was purely in his personal capacity.”

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said forming an alliance with the Trinamool was like committing suicide for the Congress.

Meanwhile, state Congress General Secretary Om Prakash Mishra told IANS that the Congress and the Left parties need to come together in West Bengal to fight the murder of democracy by the ruling party, and the communal agency of the BJP. “The joint entity should be broad-based and necessarily involve and include all the non-Trinamool Congress and non-BJP political parties, political organisations, trade unions, civil society organisations and prominent citizens from various walks of life,” Mishra said.