West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday refused to give any credit to the BJP for the electoral victories in the three big States. “It is not that the BJP won. The Congress lost the confidence of the people and the BJP got the advantage of the split in the Opposition votes,” she told her party MLAs in the State Assembly.
Later in the evening, after coming out from a meeting with the State Governor, she said that even though her party was a part of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc of Opposition parties, she had not received any invitation or intimation about a meeting on December 6 to be held at the residence of Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress president, to take stock of the electoral defeats in three States.
“I only came to know about it from you,” she told media after coming out from an hour-long meeting with the State Governor. She refused to comment on whether the Trinamool Congress would send any representative to the meeting. “I don’t know, I have got no information so I kept a programme in North Bengal…If we had the information, we wouldn’t have scheduled those programmes. We would have definitely gone (for the meeting), but we have not received any information”, she added.
Sources said that the Trinamool Congress might skip the upcoming meeting of the Opposition alliance. The I.N.D.I.A. bloc’s leaders are supposed to meet at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence in New Delhi on December 6 to chalk out a strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The meeting comes almost two months after the alliance last met. In fact, several constituents of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc were blaming the Congress for being engrossed in the Assembly elections rather than concentrating on key issues that were in front of the alliance.
As the polls results came in on Sunday, TMC tried to ensure that the Congress’ loss did not rub off on the I.N.D.I.A. bloc. General secretary and chief spokesman Kunal Ghosh said: “BJP has copied schemes from West Bengal. These results would have no impact on the Lok Sabha elections because what happened in these States is the Congress’ fault. But when a united I.N.D.I.A. comes in 2024, the BJP will not be able to withstand it… What happened in other States will not be repeated in Bengal…”
Ghosh also took a swipe at the Congress saying it was time for the party to introspect and come out of its “zamindari attitude”.
On Monday, an editorial in TMC mouthpiece Jago Bangla attacked Congress over its attitude and said the party must rectify its mistakes. “…Congress has to see why they failed, they need to introspect. Congress has to rectify its mistakes. They have a typical ‘Zamindari’ attitude that needs to change. Now, focus should be on the fight for 2024. Mamata Banerjee has defeated BJP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah could not do anything. The advice of people who are successful in defeating BJP should be taken. I.N.D.I.A. alliance is the future.”
While the TMC may still be hopeful of a good show in the 2024 polls, the party’s attack on Congress clearly shows that the latter will not be allowed to call the shots in the Opposition camp.