- Saturday, April 27, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
MAMATA Banerjee, the chief minister of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, remarked on Wednesday (1) that “there is no UPA” and it has not gone down well with the leaders of the Indian National Congress, India’s main opposition party which leads the United Progressive Alliance and of which Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has been a part in the past.
Banerjee’s controversial remark came after her meeting with Sharad Pawar, the chief of the Nationalist Congress Party which is in alliance with the Congress in Maharashtra, during her recent trip to Mumbai and it has seen strong reaction from the grand-old party which has ruled India for most part after Independence.
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The Bengal chief minister, who is in the middle of a mission to expand her party’s base across India, said in an event in Mumbai that if all the regional parties come together, defeating prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party will not be too difficult.
Three former north Indian MPs join Mamata’s TMC
However, what has kept political observers interested is Banerjee’s attacks on the Congress, a party with which she had allied for long. The 66-year-old leader herself was a member of the Congress in Bengal but left it to form her own TMC in 1998 alleging that the Congress was not committed enough to fighting the Left, which had ruled the state for 34 years, in the past. Recently, too, Banerjee has indirectly accused the Congress of putting up a little fight against Modi.
Later, the TMC was a part of the Congress-led UPA in New Delhi but left it in 2012. The Congress reciprocated by walking out of an alliance with Banerjee’s party in Bengal government over demand for reform measures.
After her third election victory in Bengal earlier this year, Banerjee has aggressively pitched for a strong alternative at the national level ahead of the 2024 election and has taken on the Congress as a strategy.
In what looks to be an attempt at pan-national expansion or alliance with “like-minded parties” ahead of the 2024 general elections, Banerjee visited Delhi and Mumbai recently where she held a series of meetings with people from all walks of life.
However, she skipped meeting Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, something she has routinely done whenever she visited the national capital in the past. When she was asked about it, she even said that she had no constitutional compulsion to do so.
Banerjee was considered close to Rajiv Gandhi, the late husband of Sonia and a former prime minister of India.
The Congress has reportedly taken an aggressive stand vis-à-vis Banerjee as well. According to a report in Asian News International, sources in the Congress said the decision to target Banerjee was taken at a meeting which was held on Wednesday (1) night.
“There were discussions among the top leaders of Congress late night on Wednesday in which it has been decided that the party will now make big attacks against Mamata,” they said.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, a senior Congress parliamentarian who is known to be a strong critic of Banerjee, slammed the meeting between the Bengal chief minister and Pawar as a “pre-meditated conspiracy” to weaken his party and alleged that the TMC chief was providing oxygen to the BJP.
The Congress, which has failed to win a single seat in the last Bengal election, fought it in alliance with the Left parties and against the TMC and BJP.
The Congress till now has followed a strategy of improving relations in the name of opposition unity. A section of the party has also been in favour of rapprochement with Banerjee for a long time.
The sources added that the responsibility of launching political attacks on Banerjee had been given to top leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge, Digvijaya Singh and Randeep Surjewala.
Indian Youth Congress chief BV Srinivas tweeted attacking Banerjee and equated her with Modi. “Ask any question to Modi ji, you will be called a Deshdrohi.. Ask any question to Mamta Di, you will be called a Maoist… What’s the difference between both?” he asked in a tweet that showed a video of Banerjee slamming a college student as ‘Maoist cadre’ for asking questions.
Ask any question to Modi ji,
you will be called a Deshdrohi..Ask any question to Mamta Di,
you will be called a Maoist…What's the difference between both? pic.twitter.com/vV4VvrpSFi
— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) December 1, 2021
Senior Congress leader and India’s former law minister Kapil Sibal said in a tweet that without the Congress, the UPA will be a body without a soul.
UPA
Without the Congress , UPA will be a body without a soul
Time to show opposition unity
— Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) December 2, 2021
The Congress has of late received major blows in a number of states where its lawmakers and other prominent leaders have made beelines to join the TMC.
Even a few former Congress chief ministers have changed bases.
