Mamata Banerjee. , Photo Credit: PTI
After repeatedly criticizing and ruling out any alliance with the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Odisha and New Delhi to hold talks with leaders of regional parties.
The Trinamool Congress president will visit Odisha on March 21, where she is likely to meet state chief minister Naveen Patnaik. After her visit to Odisha, Ms Banerjee will visit the national capital to meet leaders of other regional parties.
Since March 3, criticism of the Congress by Trinamool Congress leaders, including the chief minister, has become more direct and sharp.
Congress candidate on March 3 Byron Biswas defeated Trinamool Congress candidate Debasish Bhattacharya has won the Sagardighi assembly elections with a margin of 22,986 votes.
Ms Banerjee’s sharpest criticism of the Congress party came on March 19, when during an internal meeting of Murshidabad Trinamool Congress leaders, she referred to Rahul Gandhi as “Modi’s”. [Prime Minister) biggest TRP (target rating point)”.
“The BJP is not letting Parliament to function in order to establish Rahul Gandhi as the leader of the Opposition. If Rahul remains leader of the Opposition, nobody would be able to defeat Narendra Modi, because Rahul is Modi’s biggest TRP,” Ms. Banerjee told her party leadership.
The Chief Minister had targeted the Congress leadership during a high level party meeting on March 17 at Kolkata.
However, on Sunday, her virtual address to Murshidabad party leadership was meant for public consumption. Referring to Mr. Gandhi’s ‘democracy under threat’ remarks in the United Kingdom, the Chief Minister asked why Parliament was not allowed to function. “Why is that not happening? Why key issues such as fuel price rise, uniform civil code not being discussed,” she said.
The Chief Minister, while referring to her party’s defeat in the bypolls, accused the Opposition parties, the Left, the Congress and the BJP of a conspiracy against her party.
Referring to State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Ms. Banerjee described him as the “number one man of the BJP and the RSS”.
This remark by the Trinamool Congress chairperson comes two days after her meeting with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav. Mr. Yadav, just like Ms. Banerjee, has made public statements of marinating equal distance with the Congress and the BJP.
On March 19, the SP leader said that the regional parties are keen to have a third front or an alliance, and the Congress has to decide its role in the set up.
On Monday, Mr. Chowdhury said that the Chief Minister has not recovered from the shock of the bypoll defeat. He alleged that there was a “tacit understanding” between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ms. Banerjee to tarnish the image of the Congress and its leader Rahul Gandhi. According to the Congress party leader in the Lok Sabha, as the pressure of central agencies on the Trinamool Congress is mounting, the party is targeting the Congress leadership to appease the BJP.
Political observers feel that the Trinamool Congress has been critical of the Congress in the past but recently, the party leadership has surpassed all the attacks made in the past.
Ms. Banerjee, who began her career with the Congress, has a long and complicated relationship with the grand old party. She defected from the Congress in 1998 and set up the Trinamool Congress. Her party supported the Congress-led UPA-2 government and in 2011, the Trinamool Congress allied with the Congress to end the 34-year-old long Left Front rule in West Bengal.
Since 2016, Left parties and the Congress have entered into electoral understanding with little success against the Trinamool Congress.