(Image source from: Mamata Banerjee 'union with Congress a mistake'})

Although Trinamool and Congress are no longer close allies, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee feels that the decision to team up with Congress for West Bengal Assembly Polls in 2011 was a big 'mistake'.

The bummed-out leader lashed out at her former ally for "colluding" with the CPI-M to overthrow Trinamool Congress in the current panchayat polls 2013.

"It was a mistake to tie up with the Congress in the assembly polls two years back. We would have got 293 of the 294 seats had we not joined hands with the Congress," Banerjee commented at a panchayat poll rally in Amta of South 24 Parganas district.

The Trinamool-Congress-Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) together bagged 227 seats in the 2011 polls, booting out the Left Front that had been in power in West Bengal since 1977.

Trinamool split with the Congress in September last year, and this time the two political groups are contesting the rural body elections separately.

Banerjee, who flagged off her political journey with the Congress, said she had quit the party "out of shame" in 1998 to form Trinamool.

"I had left the Congress out of shame as its leaders were working as the agents of the Communist Party of India-Marxist. Had I not done so, the CPI-M would have never lost power in the state," she said.

AW: Suchorita Dutta