• I have the courage and ability to fight the BJP alone: CM Mamata Banerjee in Malda
    Telegraph | 1 February 2024
  • Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday iterated her pledge to take the BJP by the horns in the general election on her own in Bengal, indicating that the possibility of a rapprochement between the Trinamul Congress and the Congress over seat sharing remains bleak.

    “How many do you want then? All 42? Lose all 42? Should the BJP win them all, and then come to Bengal and unleash a reign of terror, of loot and murder? I am not going to let that happen. I have the ability and the courage to fight the BJP alone,” she said while delivering her address at Malda, and later in Behrampore, traditionally regarded as Congress bastions.

    Though Mamata has been making similar claims for the past two weeks and accusing the Congress of breaking up the INDIA combine in the state, the comments on Wednesday assumed significance as Rahul Gandhi has not uttered a word on the issue.

    Rahul was in Malda barely a few hours after Mamata left and will be in Murshidabad on Thursday.

    The fact that the Congress establishment, at least the central unit, is still keen on an electoral truck with Trinamul was evident as Rahul’s silence was complemented by senior leader Jairam Ramesh, who repeated that INDIA’s main objective was to defeat the BJP and lavished praise on Mamata yet again.

    At Malda, Rahul didn’t name Mamata once but his address bore hints that he was still banking on her as he spoke about the preeminent role of Bengal in the ideological battle against the RSS.

    Rahul went on to talk
    about the many kinds of injustice in the saffron regime and how his Bharat Jodo
    Nyay Yatra was for socio-economic justice sans discrimination.

    The
    battle against the RSS ideology and the need for socio-economic justice
    are the two main pillars of Mamata’s politics.

    “The
    people of Bengal are known to be ideologically inclined. It’s your
    responsibility to stand against and resist the (RSS) ideology of hatred,” said
    Rahul, who referred to the people of Bengal as the “guiding light” for the
    entire country before stressing the need for “intellectual leadership” from the
    state that had produced the maximum number of Nobel laureates in the country.

    Congress
    communications chief Ramesh, who has been issuing statements over the past few
    days lauding Mamata and brimming with optimism about evening out all alliance
    hurdles with her, said nothing was set in stone yet.

    “In
    any alliance, there ought to be consensus, not unanimity. Unilateral decisions
    should not be taken. There are three parties (in Bengal) from INDIA… even now
    we are of the consideration that INDIA will fight together in Bengal as well,”
    he said.

    “We
    cannot even begin to imagine INDIA without her in it. She is a major leader who
    inspires us,” added Ramesh.

    The
    placatory gesture from the Congress, however, did not have the desired effect
    on Mamata till Wednesday evening. The Bengal chief minister, who had been
    enthusiastic about a united fight against the BJP through the INDIA platform,
    has repeatedly expressed her displeasure at the inordinate delay in
    sealing the seat-sharing deal and the manner in which the state unit of
    the Congress, under the influence of the CPM, has gone after her.

    “We
    had a good understanding with the Congress… if somebody played foul, it was the
    CPM. The CPM is today the biggest agent of the BJP,” Mamata said at Behrampore
    not long after making a similar statement at Malda where
    she obliquely referred to the Congress and, apparently, Rahul as “cuckoos” that
    become active every election season.

    This
    was not the first time that Mamata had held the CPM responsible for getting in
    the way of her alliance parleys with the Congress. Over the past few days, she
    has often underscored the negative approach towards her in INDIA encouraged by
    the CPM.

    “The
    CPM is their (the Congress’s) leader... have they forgotten the tortures of the
    (Left regime)?” she asked.

    “I
    will never forgive the CPM, nor will I forgive those who support the CPM...
    because in doing so they actually end up aiding the BJP,” Mamata added.

    While
    she has not shown any sign of willingness to oblige repeated requests from the
    Congress to participate in Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, currently passing
    through Bengal, even if it’s for “10-15 minutes”, the CPM, led by its state
    secretary Md Salim, has agreed to join the event.

    The
    Congress finds itself in a spot of bother with regard to INDIA and Bengal. In
    the bloc, they are bedfellows with Trinamul and the CPM. In the state, they
    have been at daggers drawn with Trinamul, and in an on-again, off-again
    relationship with the consistently friendly CPM.

    A
    day after the Congress’s state unit chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said that
    she would perhaps not have been where she is today without the blessings of
    Rahul’s parents, the Trinamul chief responded to the claim.

    “We
    have family ties with them (the Gandhis). There are no political ties. I used
    to be in the Congress. I was thrown out. I formed Trinamul,” she said,
    referring to her days as a Congress leader till the formation of her breakaway
    party in 1998 and the affection and support she received during her stint in
    the Grand Old Party and thereafter from Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

    Even
    last week, Rahul had spoken well of his relationship with Mamata. His mother
    and sister, Priyanka Gandhi, had reached out to her with get-well-soon messages
    when she had sustained a head injury in a road incident.

    Not
    only Trinamul but also sources in the Congress high command think that the
    militant resistance to alliance negotiations from Chowdhury — who has been
    relentlessly backed on this by AICC general secretary and CWC member Deepa
    Dasmunshi — is the foremost roadblock to the Bengal settlement.

    “I
    had thought everybody would work together for the greater good. I made the
    offer first. I said you have zero MLAs (in Bengal), but I could give two Lok
    Sabha seats in Malda. They said,
    ‘it won’t do’,” said the chief minister, referring to her December 19 offer to
    Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul of the two seats their party had
    won in Bengal in 2019 — Malda South
    and Behrampore. As a reciprocal gesture, she had asked the Congress to vacate
    seats for her party in Meghalaya and Assam.

    The
    Congress’s Bengal unit believes it should be looking to contest in at least
    nine of the 42 seats, in any alliance. Of them, besides Behrampore and Malda South, the party fancies its
    chances in Murshidabad, Jangipur, Malda North,
    Raiganj, Darjeeling, Purulia and Basirhat.

    Sources
    in Trinamul said Mamata was willing to consider vacating up to four seats for
    the Congress had the party mended its ways and asked nicely.
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