The Trinamool Congress (TMC) will emerge as the third largest party after the Lok Sabha elections and prove a decisive factor in the formation of the next government at the Centre, which will be formed by a Federal Front, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee said here on Tuesday.
Addressing a TMC rally in South 24 Parganas district, she said, “We will be the third largest party after the elections and a Federal Front Government will come to power at the Centre. West Bengal’s direction will be India’s path and will be India’s future too. We will defeat the Congress-BJP-CPM nexus.”
“I will not lie to you saying we will be the largest party in the country as we cannot afford to contest all Lok Sabha seats due to lack of funds. We do not have thousand of crores like some other parties. But I will bet that within six months the TMC will be the number one party in the country,” she said.
Assailing the UPA-II Government she challenged Prime Minister Manmohan to disprove her contention that by denying Central funds to the TMC Government he had actually helped the Marxists. “He had publicly said that West Bengal had a huge loan to repay and that he would help the state out. That was when the CPM was in power here. All the Union Finance Ministers either belonging to the BJP or Congress aided the CPM to economically destroy Bengal. I was part of the UPA Government for one-and-a-half years but did not receive any monetary aid,” she claimed.
According to Mamata, she had committed a mistake by entering into an alliance with the Congress during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. “We lost ground in Malda and Murshidabad districts. We won 19 seats and at our cost, the Congress won six,” she said. The TMC chief felt that just as in West Bengal there was a need for “poriborton” (change) at the Centre as it had been depriving the states.
“The Centre had always neglected and insulted West Bengal. We are not anyone’s slave and will not beg to Delhi. After the elections we will neither beg to any political party nor be cowed down,” she said.
Interestingly, the TMC chief attacked the Congress and BJP more than her bete noire, the CPM-led Left Front. “Both the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA kept on providing funds to the former Left Front Government here and we are now faced with a debt of `34,000 crore. Both the Congress and BJP are in league with the CPM here and have joined hands to defeat us in the polls,” Mamata said.