Reiterating Mamata Banerjee’s Ekla Cholo Re stand for the scheduled Lok Sabha polls next year, the Trinamul Congress declared that the party would not tolerate the Congress’s “big boss attitude” over the Opposition parties.
“There’s no reason to believe that the Congress is the big boss of opposition parties. The Trinamul Congress has sat in dharna at the base of the Gandhi statue in Parliament over issues like the price rise many a times,” said Sudip Bandyopadhyay, the leader of Trinamul Congress parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha after the party’s strategy meet at supremo Mamata Banerjee’s Kalighat residence on Friday.
Significantly, the statement was made on a day when Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav met Banerjee at her residence shortly after the TMC’s own meeting, ostensibly to discuss the roadmap for the setting up of a possible issue-based morcha of regional parties in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls. The parties in Banerjee’s radar are the ones maintaining equidistant positions from both the BJP and the Congress.
“The BJP wants Rahul Gandhi to be the face of the Opposition. It would help them in winning the polls,” Bandyopadhyay said.
The parliamentarian made it clear that the TMC would make no attempts to get into any kind of electoral understanding with the Congress before the elections. “There’s no question of maintaining any contact with the Congress or the BJP. We will chart a path of our own and the results would be evident during the elections,” Bandyopadhyay said.
“Let the Congress fight on its own in states where it is strong. Let the results be declared and let us see where each of us stand. We can then take a call on what needs to be done to keep the BJP at bay. There is no need to choose an Opposition leader at this stage. Our leader Mamata Banerjee has already announced that to be our political stand,” he clarified.
The Congress-Trinamul Congress relationship nose dived with both parties directly taking on each other in recently-held elections in states like Goa, Tripura and Meghalaya. The embarrassing loss at the Sagardighi bypolls, a seat considered to be a TMC fortress, to the Left-backed Congress candidate reportedly embittered Banerjee even further. Rahul Gandhi himself lashed out at the Trinamul during the Meghalaya polls accusing the party of aiding the BJP and was promptly countered by the Trinamul leaders in Delhi.
Floor coordination at the Parliament between the two parties, a regular feature in the past, has evidently taken a back seat for now and the Trinamul has sent out overt messages by staying away from meetings of opposition parties convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
Mamata Banerjee, during the Friday strategy meet in Kalighat, has reportedly conveyed her intention to touch base with various regional parties in other states in the days to come to explore national political prospects of the opposition minus the Congress.
“We are not talking about the formation of a third front just yet. Our leader will speak to the leaders of all regional parties who are strong in their respective states,” said Bandyopadhyay.
Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, who accompanied Bandyopadhyay in the briefing session post the party meet, said: “There is no dearth of moral boost in our party. It is evident from the enthusiasm shown by our workers today. This proves that the Trinamul can walk on its own.”