West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee today launched a scathing attack on the Congress, and publicly said that she has her doubts if the party will win “even 40 seats” in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The attack came on the day when Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra ended its Bengal leg and crossed over to Jharkhand. The attack on the grand old party came despite the Congress central leadership treating Mamata Banerjee with kid gloves even though the State administration had been constantly putting up obstacles in the way of Rahul Gandhi’s Yatra.
Even on the last day of the yatra, the State police refused to grant permission to Rahul Gandhi’s yatra to traverse Birbhum district on the way to the Bengal-Jharkhand border. “Senior police officers forbade Rahul Gandhi from even waving at supporters,” a senior Pradesh Congress leader told The Daily Guardian.
Mamata Banerjee launched her attack on her I.N.D.I. alliance partner, the Congress, from the stage from where she started a 48-hour dharna on Friday to demand the State’s “dues” from the Centre for various social welfare schemes.
Banerjee accused the Congress of “arrogance” and lashed out at the party for not informing her, even though she was an INDIA constituent, about the yatra which was to cover her State. “I came to know about the yatra from the administration”. “Why this arrogance?” she asked.
She also took a swipe at Rahul Gandhi. Referring to the Congress leader-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’s Bengal leg wherein the Congress leader was seen interacting with “beedi” workers, Mamata Banerjee said, “Now a new style has surfaced… of a photo shoot. Those who have never gone to a tea shop now show that they sit with beedi workers. They are all migratory birds.”
In the video shared on Congress’s official handle on X, formerly Twitter, Rahul Gandhi was seen seated with a group of tobacco sellers, mostly women. He was seen engaging in a conversation regarding their revenue and trade.
The Pradesh Congress, meanwhile, is waiting for the Central leadership’s sanction to begin seat-sharing talks with the CPIM, which had participated in the Nyay Yatra.
However, party sources said that they were wary after reports that Mamata Banerjee would be visiting New Delhi on Wednesday for “an important political meeting”. “We don’t know if Mamata will use her personal equation with Sonia Gandhi to mend fences after all the insults that she has heaped on Rahul Gandhi and the Congress,” a source said.
Banerjee started the demonstration in front of BR Ambedkar’s statue in the Maidan area in the heart of the city. Giving her company were her party’s leaders who came dressed in black, as a sign of protest.
Apart from the stage on the arterial Red Road, two other enclosures have been put up by the authorities. One is functioning as the Chief Minister’s office while the other is to accommodate party confabulations.
In her address from the protest stage, the Chief Minister claimed that the BJP-led Government at the Centre owed the State thousands of crores of rupees on account of various welfare schemes, including the MGNREGA and the PM Awas Yojana.
She tried to blame the CPIM for the Centre’s fund-freeze, and accused the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) of asking for utilisation certificates for money given by the Centre from 2003 when the “Trinamool Congress was just a five-year-old baby and the CPIM was in power.
Why should we take the responsibility?” she asked.
She also read out a letter that she said had been sent to the Prime Minister. “In my letter, I have clearly said that my Government had sent utilisation certificates for all the work that had been done with Central funds. So, the funds due should be sent without any further delay,” she said.
Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s Leader of the Opposition, scoffed at the Chief Minister’s assertion. “Everyone knows what Mamata and her gang has done. Now she is claiming that she will go to Delhi. Yes, she will go to Delhi’s Tihar Jail. Nobody can stop it,” he said.
Mamata’s dharna is the second such effort to up the ante against the Centre for not paying the monies due to the State. She had led a similar demonstration last year as well over the issue.
Also, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, who is Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, had led an agitation in New Delhi, and then sat on a dharna outside the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata over it.
CPIM MP and lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said: “If the Chief Minister is so sure that there has been no hanky-panky and the Centre should release the held-up funds, why isn’t she going to the Supreme Court?
Other States have done so and received held-up funds. Why is she so afraid of approaching the courts on this issue when she is spending crores of rupees in trying to save her party leaders by continually approaching the courts with frivolous appeals?” he asked.