New Delhi: Amid growing discontent in the opposition INDIA bloc and increasing pressure on the Congress, the party on Saturday said it was the responsibility of all constituents to strengthen the alliance, and announced that the party was hopeful that INDIA will fight as an alliance in West Bengal.

In some states, the allies are in a “very good fix” and will announce the seats at an appropriate time, Congress’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said.

Ramesh said that Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge has “established contact” with Banerjee and as “she always said she wants to defeat the BJP, that’s what gives us hope that we can find a middle path… We are hopeful that INDIA bloc will fight in an alliance in Bengal”.

Ramesh’s comments came two days after Banerjee declared that her party will go solo in West Bengal and claimed that the Congress has rejected her offer of two seats.

The Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’Brien later blamed state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s attacks on Banerjee as the key reason for his party’s decision to contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The chances of a pact in West Bengal are slim and the Congress might have to give seats to the TMC in Assam and Meghalaya as a part of the seat adjustment, a TMC leader said, requesting anonymity.

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Describing Banerjee as a co-architect of the alliance, Ramesh said, “Congress president has spoken with Mamata Banerjee. They are in touch with each other. Whatever the West Bengal chief minister has said so far, she has always ended by saying her priority was to defeat the BJP. She has never stopped from reiterating this determination.”

“This alliance is for fighting the Lok Sabha polls. It is national level alliance. Local issues (such as Chowdhury’s remarks) will not get precedence over the national issues,” he added. “We fight some parties in some states. Heated words are exchanged everyday in Kerala between the Left and the Congress, but we are together in the alliance.”

The Congress has come under attack from its allies over the delay in seat-sharing pacts and other decisions. While the TMC leadership has often pointed out that more than 200 days have passed without any seat pact, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has also criticised the Congress on this count.

“The Congress should be more active,” Yadav told India Today TV in an interview on Thursday.

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“The enthusiasm that the Congress was required to show in discussing and engaging with the INDIA alliance is missing.”

Ramesh maintained that sharing seats is a “complex issue” but claimed that the INDIA allies are in a “good fix” in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand, states where the Congress has allies.

“In Maharashtra, we have a very good fix. We have a fairly good fix in Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand. We are getting there in Uttar Pradesh,” he said. “But, we have a strong state unit in some states.”

When the INDIA bloc met in Mumbai for its third meeting on August 31 and September 1 last year, the parties had resolved to start discussion of sharing seats at the earliest. But so far, the allies have not been able to announce a seat pact in any state.