West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress President Mamata Banerjee on March 29 called for unity of opposition parties for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and said it was not important who would lead them.
He said, “Every opposition party will have to come together and fight the BJP and remove the BJP from the chair…. Who will be the leader is not important. This is a fight to save the country. This is a direct fight between the people of the country and the BJP. The West Bengal Chief Minister is on a two-day dharna at Kolkata’s Red Road against the Centre, alleging that the state has been deprived by the central government.
Ms. Banerjee said she cannot call the BJP.” enemy of the country (‘enemy of the country’) but added that for lack of a better word in Hindi, she could refer to him as ” Country’s Dushashan (A villain of the Mahabharata).
“remove it” Dushasan‘ and save the country. Remove BJP and save democracy.
Ms Banerjee’s remarks came days after she met three prominent leaders of opposition parties – Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on March 17, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on March 23 and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy on March 24 Is. The Congress leader has said that the party is trying to bring regional parties on a single platform. Ms Banerjee has also spoken out against the disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as an MP.
During his speech, he claimed that the BJP wanted all the leaders of the opposition parties to be put behind bars with the help of central agencies so that they could not campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. “Who has been spared from Akhilesh Yadav to Lalu Yadav and Uddhav [Thackeray] to Arvind [Kejriwal] To [Y.S.] to Jaganmohan Reddy [M.K] Stalin to KCR [K. Chandrasekhar Rao] , Everyone is a thief and you BJP people are saints.
The chief minister also claimed that the BJP cannot win the general elections on its own. “When the BJP was at its peak, there were 17 parties in the NDA and now 16 parties have left them. All these parties have gone because people are suffering. Alone, what can they do?” The Chief Minister said. Ms Banerjee also referred to various states and said that except Uttar Pradesh, the BJP was not expected to do well in many states in the 2024 elections.
Demand for DA pay parity from the Center
Ms. Banerjee began a two-day sit-in protest against the central government in Kolkata on Wednesday.
While Ms. Banerjee’s protest in front of the Ambedkar statue in the city’s Red Road area was against the Centre’s withholding of funds for the state, the sit-in had a ripple effect in state politics, with several political parties organizing demonstrations in Kolkata.
About 600 meters away from the place where the Chief Minister was sitting on dharna, her nephew and Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee organized a massive rally and targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying that since the party would not win the 2021 assembly elections Could, therefore deprive the state of money.
“If Rahul Gandhi was disqualified, So why not Prime Minister Narendra Modi To make fun of Mamta Banerjee didi o didi ridicule, and disrespect women as a community,” Mr Banerjee said. He also said that the Trinamool Congress would seek disqualification of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Shubhendu Adhikari for his remarks against MLA Birbaha Hansda.
If the Trinamool raised its voice against the absence of the Centre, the BJP launched a barrage of corruption allegations against the ruling dispensation. State BJP leadership including Leader of Opposition Shubhendu Adhikari, State BJP President Suknata Majumdar and former BJP President Dilip Ghosh were present at the protest at Shyambazar, about five kilometers away from the Chief Minister’s protest site.
He said, ‘No chief minister or minister of any state can sit on dharna. But our chief minister does not follow any rules,” Mr Adhikari said.
Left parties and Congress also took to the streets and took out a procession from Ramlila Maidan to Park Circus. State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Mohammad Salim said that all forces opposing the BJP and the Trinamool Congress have joined the march.
While the Left parties spoke out against the Center depriving the state of funds, they also targeted the Trinamool Congress government’s corruption.
Apart from political parties, a section of West Bengal government employees demanding DA (dearness allowance) pay parity with the Center on Wednesday, about 100 meters from the place where Abhishek Banerjee held the meeting. sat in protest. The workers were sitting on strike for almost two months.
Another section of protesters were job aspirants protesting irregularities in the recruitment scam in government schools. These youths were protesting for months near the statue of Matangini Hazra, just a short distance from the place where the Chief Minister was sitting on dharna.
Speaking from the protest site, Ms. Banerjee said that though she held the dual responsibility of state chief minister and Trinamool Congress president, she was protesting as a Trinamool leader. “Those who are daily wage earners are not being given their money. For them, I will sit on dharna not once but if need be, millions of times. Regarding denial of MGNREGA wages For state workers.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee along with Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched a unique protest on Wednesday. , photo credit: Debashish Bhaduri
washing machine bjp
The Chief Minister also launched a unique protest ‘Washing Machine BJP’ with a dummy washing machine on the stage of his dharna. Ms. Banerjee put on black clothes and brought out white clothes to give a political message that those who joined the BJP were spared by the central investigative agencies.
The dharna started around 12 noon on Wednesday and is likely to continue for the next 30 hours till Thursday evening. Along with the Chief Minister, several ministers of the state government and Trinamool Congress MPs joined the dharna.
This is not the first time Ms. Banerjee is staging a sit-in in Kolkata after taking over as the chief minister. In February 2019, when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) tried to question former Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in a chit fund scam, the chief minister sat on a dharna. Before the assembly elections in West Bengal in April 2021, when the Election Commission of India barred her from campaigning for a day, the Chief Minister sat on a dharna.
“But our CM doesn’t follow any rules”Shubhendu AdhikariLeader of the Opposition