Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 21: The Trinamool Congress, the ruling party in West Bengal, has decided to boycott the vice-presidential elections as a show of protest against the method of selecting the joint opposition candidate for the post even as the party chief and the chief minister Mamata Banerjee called upon the people to make the 2024 Parliamentary polling “an election for rejection” of the ruling BJP.
The party disagreed that the TMC abstaining from voting in the vice-presidential elections in effect would strengthen the BJP’s candidate for the post Jagdeep Dhankhar, the West Bengal governor who is always at a loggerhead with Banerjee and the TMC government.
The decision to abstain from voting by the TMC Members of Parliament in the August 6 Vice presidential poll was taken after an hour-long meeting at Banerjee’s residence soon after she addressed the “martyrs’ day” rally of the party to commemorate the death of 13 youth Congress workers who were killed in clashes with police in Kolkata on this day in 1993 when the CPM was in power in the state. The rally in which the youth leaders were killed was led by Banerjee who then was the state Youth Congress chief. Though Banerjee parted company with the Congress in late 1990’s, she carried the legacy of the martyrs with her and the TMC continued to observe the day as the annual mega rally of its workers though it could not be held in the last two years because of the prevailing Covid pandemic.
After the meeting of MPs, General Secretary of All India Trinamool Congress, Abhishek Banerjee, said, “We cannot support Jagdeep Dhankhar, who when he was Governor of West Bengal, always tried to undermine the state. We cannot vote in favour of him ideologically.
On the other hand, Opposition parties chose Congress leader Margaret Alva as the candidate. But the process of how they chose the candidate was not right. They decided the candidate without consulting senior leaders like Mamata Banerjee, when TMC has 35 MPs. So, after taking the opinion of 85% of our MPs, we decided to abstain from the vice-president election.”
Abhishek dismissed claims that their move would help the BJP. “By our abstaining from Vice President election, opposition unity will not be hampered. In our efforts to expand the TMC’s footprint, we have only gone for BJP-ruled states, when we could pick Congress-ruled ones. Also, we are the only party which is fighting against the BJP on the street,” he said.
The TMC has delivered the latest blow to opposition unity after parties like the Shiv Sena and the JMM said they would back Dhankhar, the candidate of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). But Dhankhar’s election as the vice-president would mean an indirect victory for Banerjee who had been seeking his removal as the governor of West Bengal for a long time. The Chief Minister and Dhankhar have clashed relentlessly over the past three years, with Ms Banerjee accusing the governor of hounding her at the instance of the BJP at the centre.
Despite the hostile relationship, Dhankhar is believed to have sought Ms Banerjee’s support. The two met in Darjeeling recently and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was also present.
Earlier addressing the rally, Banerjee lashing out at the BJP urged the people to throw the party out from Delhi in the 2024 elections to “break the shackles of the BJP and its monumental incompetence. Install a pro-people government.”
She predicted that the BJP “which seems to have lost its mind” would not get the majority in the Lok Sabha in 2024. “Sometimes the BJP plays the Hindu card, Muslim card, and sometimes the tribal card. But they will not give tribals their rights,” she further said, referring to the BJP-led NDA fielding Droupadi Murmu as Presidential candidate.
Ms Banerjee punctuated her speech with a lot of dramatics, sometimes bringing out a cut-out of a gas cylinder and some other time calling up on the dais a “muri” (puffed rice) vendor to drive home her point that the rising prices of the essentials was breaking the backbones of the poor and the lower middle class. “Has the BJP lost its mind that it is imposing GST even on poor man’s staple diet like “muri?” she asked holding a bag of puffed rice in her hand.
Banerjee also alleged that the BJP was on a spree of breaking and bringing down governments. “In Maharashtra they brought down the government. The BJP is saying that they captured Maharashtra. Now they will capture Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and then Bengal. I have said, do not think of Bengal even by mistake. There is a huge Royal Bengal tiger here. In 2021 they tried so much. But I salute our workers, who are our assets. The BJP failed in Bengal. 2021 (Assembly polls victory) has shown us the way,” she said.
She accused the central government of holding up funds to the state. “Listen, BJP. If you don’t give us our due, we will land up in Delhi… Don’t try to scare us with ED, CBI (central probe agencies). We are not cowards. We will fight and win.”
Referring to the Centre’s “Agnipath” military recruitment programme, Banerjee said, “There is no alternative to the Army. Now Armymen and jawans are being deprived. Now they have introduced Agnipath. Will they work as BJP cadres after they are thrown out of army after four years?” she questioned.