The Samajwadi Party said on Tuesday that Mamata Banerjee would conduct two sets of joint public meetings and news conferences with Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow and Varanasi virtually next month ahead of the Assembly polls in the northern state.
Akhilesh’s emissary Kiranmoy Nanda, a former Bengal fisheries minister in the Left Front regime, on Tuesday met the Trinamul Congress chief at her residence here and announced the plan. He hailed Mamata repeatedly as “a national face against the BJP”.
“We would have liked to get Mamata Banerjee to come to Uttar Pradesh for (a physical) campaign. Because after the unprecedented success in Bengal, after the BJP’s epic defeat, Mamata Banerjee is an anti-BJP face nationally. We would like her support to help further inspire our workers and the anti-BJP people of Uttar Pradesh,” said Nanda, an SP spokesman.
“On February 8 in Lucknow, they will conduct a joint meeting from our party office virtually, to be telecast throughout Uttar Pradesh… also a joint news conference. At a later date, a similar exercise would be conducted in Varanasi…. Had we been able to conduct a normal rally, lakhs would’ve turned up to witness this,” he added.
Nanda ruled out the possibility of Trinamul contesting a few seats in UP in alliance with the SP.
“The Trinamul Congress is not going to contest from any Uttar Pradesh seat, they are fully throwing their weight behind the Samajwadi Party, just as we had done for them in Bengal last year,” he added.
Asked why Akhilesh would like Mamata’s support, Nanda appeared astonished.
“We would not want Mamata Banerjee by our side?” he asked.
The SP could become a principal challenger to the BJP’s hegemony in the general election of 2024, should Akhilesh manage to fell the Yogi Adityanath government in UP.
Mamata’s role as a key player nationally in the anti-BJP political space has been put to question by the Congress and some of its allies recently on account of her persistent attacks on the Grand Old Party and attempts to achieve Trinamul’s growth in some states where the Congress is deemed a favourite to unseat BJP-led governments there.
Nanda went on to underscore the SP’s faith in its ability to wrest power from the BJP this time. “As you all know, the entire country is looking at the UP elections. The people have already decided to wipe out the BJP. A Samajwadi Party government is going to be formed there under Akhilesh Yadav’s leadership,” he said, repeatedly accusing the ruling dispensations at the Centre and in UP of trying to spoil his party’s campaign by using Covid-19 safety concerns as an excuse.
“In my entire career, I have never seen such conditions for a campaign. The BJP is scared. Wherever Narendra Modi or Amit Shah were holding meetings, chairs were not getting occupied (in the audience). In contrast, wherever Akhilesh Yadav goes, people flood that place,” he added.
The BJP’s Bengal chief spokesperson, Samik Bhattacharya, responded with sarcasm.
“According to an old saying, Lucknow’s dusk and Varanasi’s dawn are experiences that must be part of one’s life. Our respected chief minister will witness both, and see how much things have changed there…. We wish her all the best. We would like her to have a very pleasant trip,” he said.
TMC internal polls
Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee on Tuesday announced the party’s decision to have organisational elections on February 2. The new central committee would be announced on March 31. Every booth committee would participate in the process.
