Krishnagar, Dec. 6: The Congress today said it would “bargain hard” for seats from the Trinamul Congress before the 2011 Assembly elections in an apparent bid to placate sections of the party unhappy with the alleged surrender to Mamata Banerjee before the general election this summer.

“We have to bargain hard and ask for more seats in 2011,” state Congress president Pranab Mukherjee told the concluding session of a three-day Congress conclave here.

The party, which had contested all 294 Assembly seats in 2006 when it did not have a pact with Trinamul, is likely to be happy if it gets 100 in 2011, said some of those attending the conclave.

When the two parties fought the state polls together in 2001, the Congress had contested only 57. Given that, it has to bargain really hard to get anywhere near the desired 100. In the general election this year, the party had agreed on a 14-28 seat-sharing deal.

“To press for more seats, we have to strengthen our organisation,” Mukherjee said.

In Calcutta, Trinamul state president Subrata Bakshi said it was, too, early to discuss seat sharing for 2011.

At the conclave, Raiganj MP Deepa Das Munshi slammed Mamata almost in the manner of the Left. “I’m called anti-alliance, but can we sit idle if somebody regularly unveils railway projects with central funds and breaks the Congress into pieces?” she asked.

Although Deepa got support from Nadia president Shankar Singh, a majority of those present told Mukherjee they were wary about sending “a wrong message to Mamata”.

“Our primary objective is to free Bengal of Left misrule. So we should all work keeping in mind that the alliance is a political necessity,” Mukherjee told the delegates.

He told a news conference later Mamata would be the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate.