Mamata Banerjee blames ‘inflexible’ AAP, Congress for BJP’s Delhi & Haryana wins | India News
KOLKATA: Congress’s inflexibility in Delhi and AAP‘s intransigence in Haryana led to BJP victories in assembly elections there, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said on Monday while declaring that Trinamool Congress wasn’t banking on anyone’s support to return to govt in the state by a two-thirds majority next year.
“We won’t need anybody’s support. But everyone in the party must work together,” she told TMC legislators at a closed-door meeting in the assembly building before the start of the budget session. The Mamata govt is scheduled to table the last budget of its current term next Wednesday.
Trinamool MLAs quoted the CM as saying that BJP edged out AAP in Delhi “by a mere 4% vote gap” solely because of Congress’s refusal to side with the party in govt. “The outcome would have been different had Congress forged an alliance with AAP,” she said.
Mamata also faulted the AAP brass for nixing a pre-election understanding with Congress in Haryana last year. “In Haryana, too, AAP and Congress split votes to make it easy for BJP to retain office.”
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh added, “The Congress-Left Front alliance in 2021 could not stop the Trinamool juggernaut,” he said, pointing out that INDIA bloc was set up to put up a united resistance to BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“The next Lok Sabha elections are five years away. BJP doesn’t need to worry about INDIA bloc.”
Meanwhile, an editorial in Sena (UBT) mouthpiece Saamna questioned the need for opposition unity if constituents continue to fight each other.
“In Delhi, both AAP and Congress fought to destroy each other, making things easier for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. If this continues, why even form alliances? Just fight to your heart’s content!” the editorial in ‘Saamana’ quipped.
The Marathi daily claimed that failing to learn from the Delhi poll results would only strengthen, what it termed as, the “autocratic rule” under Modi and Shah.
