West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. file | Photo Credit: PTI
Congratulating the people of Karnataka for a “decisive mandate for change”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the results are the beginning of the end for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking to reporters at her residence, Ms Banerjee said the people of Karnataka had voted against the BJP’s “arrogance, intolerance and agency politics”. Trinamool Congress (TMC) president raised the slogan ” BJP will do, desh bachao (BJP hatao, desh bachao)”, and said that Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will have elections in the next few months and the BJP is going to lose the assembly elections there as well.
Ms. Banerjee also said that the people of the country want change. He said all opposition parties should come together against the BJP and fight the Lok Sabha elections on a “1:1 formula”. He said that in the next Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was not winning seats in states in the south including Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and in states in eastern India including Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha. The saffron party will not do well in Delhi and Punjab. The Chief Minister also said that the BJP remains strong in states like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
no mention of congress
While Ms Banerjee congratulated the people of Karnataka and said HD Kumaraswamy’s (Janata Dal-Secular or JD-S) party had also done well in the assembly polls, she made no reference to the Congress. There was no mention of the Congress party in his tweets and conversation with reporters. Asked about the performance of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, Ms Banerjee declined to comment.
During the day, the CM met Bollywood actor Salman Khan at his residence. Mr Khan was in the city to attend an event. Ms Banerjee said she was concerned about the actor’s safety.