Mamata Banerjee in her Thursday speech was silent on the Congress, despite its state unit’s animosity towards her regime, in her attacks against her political Opposition in Bengal, and directly appealed to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) not to support “the two who have destroyed the country”.
“The RSS… please do not endorse those who did the greatest damage to the nation. Please do not keep supporting the two that have destroyed the country,” said the Trinamul chief, steering clear of naming either Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union home minister Amit Shah in this part of her address.
“The Centre has kept everyone at gunpoint and threatening everyone to do their bidding. The sooner they are shown the door, the better it is for the people,” she added.
The Trinamul chief kept attacking the BJP and the CPM in her 68-minute speech, but spared the Congress. That, despite the Congress’s state unit being as belligerent toward her dispensation as the CPM or the BJP.
She repeatedly hailed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the national bloc of anti-BJP parties she is part of. The Congress and the CPM are also a part of INDIA.
Till she founded Trinamul in 1998, Mamata was a leader, a parliamentarian, and even a Union minister from the Congress.
Both the Congress and the CPM are Trinamul’s bedfellows in INDIA, but find themselves in a precarious position in Bengal, as they are directly opposed to Mamata’s party. In the state, the CPM and the Congress have been allies in the past, and seem to be in the process of finding some sort of ground, equidistant
from Trinamul and the BJP in Bengal, ahead of the Lok Sabha election.
“There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that in the silence was a message, loud and clear, to the Congress high command in Delhi. There have been back-channel parleys at various levels, including the very highest, between the two parties. The results, although abstract at the moment, are far less than satisfactory,” said a Trinamul MP.
Although the RSS is at the other end of the spectrum from the Congress, the
MP said there was no contradiction in her plea to the Sangh.
“The RSS is the backbone, lungs, heart, etc., of the BJP. Without RSS backing, the BJP or anybody in it is nothing. She believes not everyone in the RSS, or even the BJP, is as sinister as the duopoly in question. The appeal was
not a dilution of her stand,” said the MP.
Mamata was, in the first decade since her party’s formation, an on-again, off-again ally of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, and a Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet.
Mamata did, however, name the Prime Minister as “Modi babu”, in her attack against the alleged cowardice of the saffron regime.
“I have never seen such a cowardly political party. I named our alliance INDIA, our country’s name. From the next day, they started making attempts to have the nation’s name changed to only Bharat…. How can you change the name of the country?” Mamata asked.
“How will you change the Constitution of India, Modi babu?” she asked, here naming the Prime Minister.
Accusing the saffron camp of “trembling in fear” for being secretly sure of its defeat in the general elections, Mamata said palaces were now occupied by dictators.
“(Adolf) Hitler’s ghosts, in the form of dictators occupying palaces.... claiming they once sold tea,” said Mamata.
“Hitler is here no longer, but these new feudal lords have come to establish a new version of feudalism,” she added. “Three months more…. People will tell them: “No, no, no! No more, no more, no more! Bidaay ney bhai (Bid adieu, brother).”
