Five days after a saffron tsunami blew her Trinamool Congress (TMC) away from power in West Bengal, its former chief minister Mamata Banerjee has appealed to all opposition parties in the state to join hands and form a “joint platform” to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Her words came hours after the BJP formed its first-ever government in Bengal under the leadership of Suvendu Adhikari, the new chief minister, at a mega gathering that included Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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The BJP stormed to power in Bengal, a state where it had largely been a peripheral force over the years, winning 207 seats in the 294-member assembly, while the TMC secured 80 seats. The results were almost a replica of the 2021 election outcome, with the two parties’ positions changed. The former chief minister herself was defeated in her den by the new CM, once her aide.
Mamata urges Left, ultra-Left, anti-BJP student unions
Mamata, who ruled for three terms before the debacle, also urged student unions of various affiliations opposed to the BJP, as well as NGOs, to come together against the saffron camp.
“I call upon all opposition parties, including the Leftists and the ultra-Left, to come together to form a joint platform against the BJP,” Mamata said, also calling upon national parties to join. She refused to submit a resignation after the poll results came out or even after the governor dissolved the Assembly, accusing the BJP of stealing the mandate.
She changed her bio on X as “Chief Minister of West Bengal (15th, 16th and 17th Vidhan Sabha)”, stopping short of writing former or ex.
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The septuagenarian leader said she was open to talking with any political party if they wanted to hold talks with her.
“It is not the time to think the enemy’s enemy is my friend, our first enemy is the BJP,” she said, while addressing a small gathering in front of her residence in Kalighat, Kolkata, on the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore’s 165th birth anniversary.
She claimed that atrocities were being committed against TMC workers and supporters across the state following the declaration of the assembly election results.
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“Hooliganism is going on at places, bad elements have entered their (BJP) ranks,” the former CM said.
She also claimed that she did not allow atrocities against anyone after coming to power in 2011, when the TMC unseated the Left’s 34-year rule in a historic election.
Mamata had called for grand alliance against Left in 2001
It is not the first time that Mamata has given a call for a grand platform to beat her enemy No.1. Before her party’s debut Assembly election in 2001, she had taken initiative to form a ‘mahajot’ (grand alliance) to defeat the Left, which was in power then, by bringing together the Congress and the BJP on one platform, along with the TMC.
It, however, did not materialise. After quitting the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance earlier the same year over the Tehelka scam, the TMC fought the election with the Congress, and the alliance was humbled by the Left.
(With agency inputs)
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