Team News Riveting
Kolkata, May 15
Two days after Congress’ stupendous victory in Karnataka, All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) of Mamata Banerjee today hinted that it was ready to extend support to the grand-old party in the 2024 general elections.
However, Banerjee had put a pointer that the Congress, too, should reciprocate the political gesture by not fighting the TMC on a daily basis in states like Bengal. She said the Trinamool alone should be allowed to fight the BJP in Bengal without the Left-Congress combine cutting into its vote share.
“I think wherever the regional parties are strong like in Bihar, Odisha, Bengal, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, these parties should be given priority to fight the BJP,” the West Bengal Chief Minister said. “And places where the Congress is strong, in the 200-odd seats which we have calculated, let them fight and we will give them support,” she added.
Banerjee said the Congress must reciprocate by supporting the other political parties as well. “If I offer you support in Karnataka, your policy should not be to fight me daily in my state. This is true for everybody,” Banerjee said at the state secretariat Nabanna on Monday.
This is the first time Banerjee has actually given overt signal of having the Congress in the Opposition fold to take on the BJP. She has now put on the table a possible unity strategy for the Opposition camp. And it is a gameplan that includes the Congress. Political observers felt that Congress’s Karnataka performance may have forced Didi to address the Congress factor sooner than she would have liked to.
Starting off with a rider, “I am not a magician. And I am not at all an astrologer. I cannot say what will happen in future,” Banerjee was responding to a question on how she foresees the prospects of the Opposition’s one-on-one fight against the BJP with Congress in the equation.
“If you want to achieve some good things, then you must also be ready to make sacrifices in certain areas,” she said and added: “For the sake of saving the country, this should be a level playing ground for all parties. This must be done to save democracy and the people of this country.”
