Thursday, February 9 2006 13:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: With Congress yet to respond to the Trinamool Congress' call to join an anti-CPI(M) grand alliance, TC chief Mamata Banerjee is likely to finalise seat sharing between her party and BJP for the ensuing West Bengal assembly elections at a meeting with Arun Jaitley, BJP's election observer for the state.

Jaitley, who was recently appointed party's election observer, would meet Banerjee tonight in which the issue of seat sharing between the two parties was likely be finalised, state BJP general secretary Rahul Sinha here said.

He said ahead of his meeting with the TC supremo, Jaitley after his arrival here tonight, would meet the party's state leadership to discuss the strategy for the assembly elections in the state.

Asked how many seats the BJP would demand from TC, Sinha said the number of seats was not very important to them. "Our party wants some good seats."

State BJP sources said that in the 2001 assembly polls in the state, TC, before severing ties with BJP, had offered 39 seats to the party. However, the alliance did not take place as the TC had pulled out of the NDA and contested the election in alliance with the Congress.

The Trinamool Congress chief has announced on Sunday the first list of 53 candidates of the party for the coming elections of which 52 were sitting MLAs.

Despite two rounds of meetings with her, Congress stuck to its stand of joining hands with TC only if it came out of the NDA.