‘I don’t trust her; she can go to BJP also’: Adhir on Mamata’s flip-flop on INDIA ties
The TMC chief, who refused a seat-sharing deal with INDIA partners, has said she will support the bloc from outside if it comes to forming the govt at Centre
Reacting to Mamata Banerjee’s flip-flop on her alliance with the INDIA bloc, West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday (May 16) said he “did not trust her” and that she could even “veer towards the BJP”.
The Bengal chief minister, who refused a seat-sharing deal with INDIA bloc partners Congress and Left Front to go it alone in the Lok Sabha polls, said on Wednesday that her party would support the INDIA bloc from outside if it came to forming the government at the Centre. In her campaign, she has been asking voters to shun the Left and the Congress in the same breath as she has been asking them to reject the BJP.
No “trust”
Chowdhury, the Congress’s tallest leader in Bengal who is known to have a beef with the TMC supremo, said she had done a changed her mind possibly because she is now aware that the INDIA bloc has a good chance of coming to power.
“I don’t trust her. She left the alliance and ran away. She can also go towards the BJP... They were talking about destroying the Congress, and that Congress would not get more than 40 seats. But now if she is saying that, it means the Congress and the alliance are coming to power,” Chowdhury told news agency ANI in an interview.
Adhir calls Mamata “opportunist”
Chowdhury termed Banerjee as an “opportunist” who altered her stance after realising the changing political landscape. “This clearly indicates that the INDIA bloc is striding ahead and on the verge of forming the government and that’s is why as an astute and opportunist leader, Mamata Banerjee has decided to extend her support well in advance,” Chowdhury told reporters.
“She (Banerjee) has lost her credibility. She has understood the crude reality that voters are gearing towards the INDIA bloc. She has realised that she has been isolated in national politics. This is a ploy to stay alive in national politics,” he said.
Complicated ties
Addressing a rally in Hooghly on Wednesday, the TMC chief said her party will extend support to the INDIA bloc from outside to form the government at the Centre. Banerjee, however, clarified that in West Bengal, her party will not support the Congress and CPI(M) and alleged that both the parties, which are part of the INDIA alliance, have joined hands and helping the BJP in the state.
“Do not count on the CPI(M) and the Congress in Bengal. They are not with us; they are with the BJP here. I am talking about that (INDIA bloc) in Delhi,” she said.
On Thursday afternoon, Banerjee reiterated that she remains a key part of the opposition bloc, which she called her “brainchild”. At an election rally in Tamluk, she said, “I am very much part of INDIA... it was my brainchild. We are together at the national level and will continue to be together.”
It’s TMC vs BJP
Three more phases are left in the seven-phase polls, with the fifth about to be held on May 20. While the BJP has made solid inroads in the northern parts of West Bengal, South Bengal is still largely a TMC bastion, even though its western parts also went saffron in the 2019 polls.
While the TMC managed to win 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats last time, the BJP bagged 18, with two going to the Congress. In the 2021 Assembly polls, though, TMC managed to win most of these areas that went with the BJP in the general elections. The results of the polls this year are due on June 4.
(With agency inputs)
