Smarting from Sagardighi bypolls defeat, Mamata says TMC will fight 2024 polls alone

Following her party’s humiliating defeat in Sagardighi bypolls in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress’ chief Mamata Banerjee has said that the party will go solo in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and rather bank on people’s support than alliances.

Banerjee who called the Congress-CPI(M) alliance for the Sagardighi bypolls as “unholy” said the parties rather seemed to have a setting with the BJP to defeat the TMC.

Also read: West Bengal: Sagardighi bypoll result sets alarm bells ringing for TMC

“If there are unholy alliances, how will Congress fight with BJP? How will Left fight with the BJP…How are CPM and Congress claiming to be anti-BJP?” she said.

The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal suffered a shock defeat in Sagardighi which was won by Congress Bayron Biswas by 22,986 votes. It is the only seat held by the Congress in the state assembly.

She said the Congress should refrain from calling itself anti-BJP. “For the Sagardighi loss, I do not blame anyone… But, there is an immoral alliance, which we strongly condemn. The BJP transferred its votes to the Congress…. everyone played the communal card. The BJP, of course, played the communal card. The Congress, CPI(M), however, turned out to be bigger players in this regard,” she told reporters

“In 2024, we will see an alliance between Trinamool and the people. We will not go with any of the other political parties. We will fight alone with people’s support,” the Bengal chief minister said.

By-election to the constituency, seen as a prestige fight for state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury in his home district of Murshidabad, was necessitated following the death of state minister Subrata Saha in December last year.

Banerjee’s latest comments show that the TMC may not be a participant in a third front which could be stitched together by Rahul Gandhi or one of her rival Prime Ministerial aspirants like Bihar’s Nitish Kumar, Telangana’s K Chandrashekhar Rao and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal.

Also read: Blow hot, blow cold: Bengal Governor keeps TMC, BJP guessing

Incidentally, the TMC had played a key role in facilitating an Opposition alliance in the 2018 Lok Sabha polls. She, however, switched her focus back to the state after the BJP wrested 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. While the TMC supremo, post her 2021 win in the Assembly elections have been trying to expand her footprints beyond Bengal, the same has not yielded the desired results. While the party failed to win any seats in Goa and Tripura, TMC, however, was able to win five seats in Meghalaya.