West Bengal chief minister on Wednesday said the Trinamool Congress party will contest the Lok Sabha elections in all constituencies in the state, citing a major setback in the seat-sharing talks with the INDIA bloc ally Congress. The TMC supremo reportedly said her proposals on seat-sharing were “refused” during the meeting.

The announcement comes a day after a closed-door meeting between the West Bengal CM and party leaders in the TMC stronghold Birbhum district, in which Banerjee reportedly asked all leaders to prepare for contesting the polls alone and not to think about seat-sharing talks.

A rift could be observed between Congress and TMC over seat sharing in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections. TMC’s vocal critic and state Congress chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, has been launching attacks on CM Banerjee. On Tuesday, the Congress MP called The Bengal CM an“opportunist” and said the elections would not be fought at her mercy.

“This time, the elections will not be fought at the mercy of Mamata Banerjee. The Congress defeated the BJP and TMC in the two seats that Mamata Banerjee is leaving. The Congress party knows how to contest the elections. Mamta Banerjee is an opportunist; she came to power in 2011, with the mercy of Congress,” Chowdhury said, moments after party leader Rahul Gandhi snubbed his criticism against Mamata Banerjee by saying those remarks “won’t matter”.

“The negotiations on seat-sharing are underway; I don’t want to comment here. But Mamata Banerjee is very close to me and our party. Sometimes our leaders say something, their leaders say something, and it goes on. It’s a natural thing. Such comments won’t matter and these are not things that are going to disrupt things,” Gandhi said on the sidelines of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

The state Congress expressed disappointment over TMC’s proposal to share only two of the total 42 constituencies in the state for contesting the national elections.

Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has been proposing a performance-based quantifier to decide on seat-sharing gaming INDIA bloc allies.

“Our party supremo clearly said that we don’t need to think about seat-sharing talks with the Congress. She said that the party had offered two seats to them. But the Congress at times is demanding 10-12 seats,” a senior TMC leader told PTI.