KOLKATA: On the eve of the INDIA bloc's meeting in New Delhi, the Trinamool Congress, a major constituent of the alliance, urged the Congress to abandon its "Zamindari culture" and work towards presenting senior leaders like Mamata Banerjee as the face of the alliance.
"The Congress should take a lesson from its defeat in three states. It has to keep aside the Zamindari culture. It cannot treat its partners in the INDIA bloc as its subjects. To ensure that the INDIA bloc wins in the next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Congress must make Mamata Banerjee, who is a consecutive three-time chief minister and was a three-time Union minister, and other senior leaders of the alliance the faces of the INDIA bloc,” said TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh in Kolkata on Monday.
Earlier, Mamata had castigated the Congress over the BJP’s stupendous victory in three states—Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Rajasthan. Referring to Congress’s defeat in the assembly elections in the Hindi heartland, she had said the grand old party’s decision to fight the polls on its own led to a division of votes benefitting the BJP.
Mamata also said in the Assembly that the Congress lost the polls due to a lack of seat-sharing arrangements with the members of the INDIA bloc stressing that it is a “defeat of Congress, not the people”.
Ghosh’s statement is said to be politically significant a day before the INDIA bloc’s meeting which appeared as TMC’s pressure tactics before the seat-sharing issue was discussed in Tuesday’s meeting.
Before leaving for Delhi on Sunday, Mamata hinted that seat-sharing discussion would get top priority in the INDIA bloc’s meeting.
This remark prompted a sharp response from the West Bengal Congress unit, with spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy asserting, "We don't need lessons from the TMC on how to fight against the BJP. It is the Congress, which has been consistently fighting against the BJP, unlike the TMC which on several occasions has compromised with the saffron camp."
According to TMC sources, the party is eager to expedite seat-sharing talks, establish a collective narrative, and finalise the manifesto to present a credible challenge against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In New Delhi, Banerjee stated that the INDIA bloc's prime ministerial candidate will be decided after the 2024 general elections, expressing confidence that the alliance will resolve issues, including seat-sharing, and defeat the BJP.
She dismissed suggestions that the alliance has lost time in organising things, stating, "It is better late than never," and expressed confidence that formation of an alliance is possible in West Bengal among the TMC, Congress, and the Left.
Her remarks also drew sharp reactions from the CPI(M) and the Congress in the state.
"The TMC has hardly any role in seat-sharing as it does not have any presence in other states. And in West Bengal, all of us are aware that the TMC and BJP are two sides of the same coin," CPI(M) MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said.
Congress leader Soumya Aich Roy mentioned that the party already has an alliance with the Left in West Bengal.
The Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front are contesting polls against both the TMC and the BJP in the state, he said.
(With inputs from PTI)