With Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee making it clear that the TMC will go it alone in the coming polls giving the Congress a creased forehead ahead of the 2019 general elections, a section of Bengal Congress leaders have vented their ire asking Banerje to clear her position vis-a-vis the NDA, post polls next year.
This group is led by former PCC president Adhir Chowdhury who has raised the issue of her possible post-poll tilt.
In Bengal the Congress currently has 4 MPs, the Left and the BJP have two MPs each and the remaining 34 seats are held by the Trinamool Congress.
“Why doesn’t Mamata Banerjee make an open statement that she will not join the NDA or support it after the general elections?” he earlier wondered while another senior leader Manoj Chakrabarty said the Chief Minister was trying to make a difference between a ‘good BJP’ and a ‘bad BJP’ which “only hints at TMC’s opportunistic mindset.”
The Congress leaders quoted Banerjee as saying that she always adored tall and impartial leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee. “She has said in her party mouthpiece about her respect for Vajpayee and other similar leaders which was why she supported the NDA since 1998,” said a PCC leader wondering why Banerjee did not make her stance clear this time round about whether she would back a Modi-less NDA in case of a hung-parliament.
“Her consistent fight against the anti-people BJP Government has drawn public appreciation. But will she continue to do so if there is a hung parliament and if they (the BJP) decide to bring in Sushma Swaraj or Rajnath Singh or anyone else to lead their party in Parliament?” this leader requesting anonymity said.
“We will raise such issues subsequently, when we go to the people before the elections. For now we have been asked by the high command to watch the situation and strengthen the organization,” said this PCC leader from Murshidabad an otherwise strong Congress bastion currently “usurped by the TMC with money, muscle and State power.”
With the Congress nearly decimated and an the Left lingering with 15-17 per cent vote share the Bengal politics seems clearly divided between the Trinamool Congress and a surging BJP which has claimed that the party will definitely win 22 or more out of the 42 seats in the general elections.
The TMC which enjoys a total control over the State’s 30 percent minority votes however has said that the BJP will not get even the 2 seats (Asansol and Darjeeling) that they won last time.
Incidentally TMC leader Chandan Mitra recently said, despite the ambitious targets set by the BJP “I don't think that there is any serious possibility of Mamata Banerjee's popularity being dented, and her (TMC) seats coming down.”
Meanwhile, in an unrelated development the Chief Minister has claimed that her Government has ensured food security to about 8.5 crore people of the State.
The Chief Minister has said that the Khadya Sathi scheme launched by her Government has ensured food security to more than 8.5 crore people of the State. This includes the people of Jangalmahal too, she added.
