Union Minister Smriti Irani on Sunday attacked the Congress for planning to align as part of Opposition unity with the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which she claimed had indulged in violence in the panchayat polls in West Bengal. At least 15 people were killed during polling in the eastern state on Saturday, with both the ruling TMC and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party accusing each other of indulging in violence.
“People are seeing the way democracy was murdered in the panchayat polls in West Bengal where people who went to cast their votes were killed. With that TMC party, the Gandhi family (Congress) wants to enter into an alliance,” she said in an apparent reference to the two parties taking part in the Opposition meeting held in Patna on 23 June. Opposition parties met in the Bihar capital on the behest of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to form an alliance against the BJP for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Irani, who is the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, said she wanted to ask the Gandhi family if it was acceptable to align with those who had wreaked havoc in West Bengal. “Are these killings (during the WB panchayat polls) acceptable to the Gandhi family?” she asked. Irani had been asked about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with farmers in their fields in Haryana on Saturday. Irani was in Madhya Pradesh to address a regional symposium on child protection, safety and welfare held in Bhopal.
