Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be kept out of power, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday. She urged political parties in the National Democratic Alliance not to support any government led by Mr. Modi.
The Chief Minister also made a public appeal to the “good people” in the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and said that it was the right time to “revolt.” “I will help the INDIA team, and I will try to make sure that Modi is out, and INDIA is in. Because if INDIA is in, people will be safe, the country will be safe, and I think that INDIA has the capacity. Whatever votes they have got is enough,” she said.
The TMC chairperson said Abhishek Banerjee will attend the INDIA alliance meeting in Delhi on Wednesday. “I will ask Abhishek to go. But before going, he should meet individual leaders,” she said.
The Chief Minister said that she has reached out to several leaders of the Opposition including Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, and Nationalist Congress Party (SP) leader Sharad Pawar, and sent a congratulatory note to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
“PM Modi has lost credibility; he should resign immediately . India has won, Modi has lost. The PM broke many parties, and now people have broken his morale. Modi is now at the feet of the TDP and Nitish (Kumar) to form the government,” she said, urging parties in the NDA like Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party not to support the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Enthused by her party’s performance in the Lok Sabha polls, in which the TMC bagged 29 of the 42 seats, reducing the BJP to 13 seats, the Chief Minister threatened to launch an agitation in Delhi if funds owed to the West Bengal government were not released.
“The new government will not last if it steps out of bounds,” she said.
Congratulating the people of the State, the TMC chairperson emphasised her party’s victory in the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat under which Sandeshkhali falls. “We won the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat, where Sandeshkhali is located, despite the canards that were spread about our mothers and sisters,” she said.
Ms. Banerjee said that the BJP failed to win even in the Sandeshkhali Assembly constituency. The BJP leadership in West Bengal had used the alleged atrocities against women at Sandeshkhali as its main poll plank, but the party was defeated not only in Basirhat but in many places in south Bengal.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, while admitting defeat, said “39% of voters supported us”. Officially, the TMC registered about 46% of the votes while the BJP got 38.5%. Mr. Adhikari alleged that TMC leaders told the electorate in Bengal that benefits would end if they were not voted back to power.
Former State BJP president Dilip Ghosh who lost to TMC’s Kirti Azad was disappointed that he was asked to contest from Bardhaman Durgapur and leave the Medinipur seat he had represented for the past five years. The BJP lost the Medinipur Lok Sabha seat along with Jhargram and Bankura which it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. While the saffron party failed to win any seats in and around Kolkata, it also lost the Hooghly and Barrackpore Lok Sabha seats which it won in 2019.
