Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 9: Coming out of the self-inflicted “Vanvas” since the BJP trounced her Trinamool Congress in the just-concluded Assembly elections in West Bengal, the party chief and former chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday called for all opposition parties in West Bengal to unite under a “joint platform” to fight the BJP, which took over the reins of the state from the TMC after 15 years in power.
The former chief minister also called upon the student unions opposed to the BJP and even NGOs to unite against the BJP. Mamata’s message came even the first BJP government headed by her arch rival Suvendu Adhikari was being installed in the office.
“I call upon all opposition parties, including the Leftists and the ultra-Left, to come together to form a joint platform against the BJP,” Banerjee said while addressing a small gathering in front of her Kalighat residence on Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary.
Mamata also urged national parties to join her “joint platform” to fight the BJP. She further said she would talk with any political party if they want to hold a dialogue with her in this regard. “It is not the time to think the enemy’s enemy is my friend, our first enemy is the BJP,” the TMC leader said.
Mamata further claimed that atrocities were being committed against TMC workers and supporters across the state after the BJP’s win. “Hooliganism is going on at places, bad elements have entered their (BJP) ranks,” Banerjee said.
The chatter around ‘INDIA’ bloc is back with the TMC’s loss in Bengal. A day after the big BJP win, Akhilesh Yadav, a leader of the opposition bloc, met Mamata and backed her claim that the Election Commission and the BJP “stole” the mandate in Bengal. Though, Mamata has been a part of the opposition INDIA bloc, her party went solo in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections in Bengal.
Her message came in the backdrop of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi taking to the social media to post a short video with a mega claim on the opposition alliance. “Likh kar le lo,” take it in writing, Rahul Gandhi said in his X post on Friday, adding, “No other party can defeat the BJP and Narendra Modi. Only the Congress can.”
The opposition alliance has also served a blow in Tamil Nadu, where the Congress has chosen to back Vijay’s TVK, the largest party in the state, raising questions over its future with DMK, a key partner in terms of numbers in the Lok Sabha.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee, who has so far refused to resign as chief minister claiming “conspiracy” by the Election Commission to push her party out of power, on Saturday updated her bio on X giving rise to speculations if she has finally conceded defeat. The Trinamool chief has updated her bio on X to reflect that she was the chief minister in three previous terms. “Founder Chairperson All India Trinamool Congress. Chief Minister of West Bengal (15th, 16th and 17th Vidhan Sabha),” the new bio read. Earlier, it read: “Founder Chairperson All India Trinamool Congress. Honourable Chief Minister, West Bengal”.
Ms Banerjee whose TMC could only get 80 of the state’s 294 seats, had alleged that the West Bengal assembly poll verdict was “not a people’s mandate but a conspiracy” and refused to resign as chief minister. She alleged large-scale irregularities in counting, claiming nearly 100 seats were “looted” and that the pace of counting was deliberately slowed to sap her party’s morale.
“Why should I step down? We have not lost. The mandate has been looted. Where does the question of resignation arise?” she had told reporters. “The question of my resignation does not arise, as we were defeated not by a public mandate but by a conspiracy…I did not lose; I will not go to Lok Bhavan,” the 71-year-old leader had said.
