'Shun Zamindari Culture, Make Mamata Face Of I.N.D.I.A Bloc': TMC Urges Congress Ahead Of Oppn Meet

Banerjee, the TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister, is already in New Delhi for the conference and has campaigned for the bloc's PM candidate to be picked after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Source : PTI

On the eve of the INDIA bloc's meeting in New Delhi, a key member of the alliance, the Trinamool Congress, urged the Congress to renounce its "Zamindari culture" and strive towards presenting senior leaders like Mamata Banerjee as the face of the coalition, news agency PTI reported. Banerjee, the TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister, is already in New Delhi for the conference and has campaigned for the bloc's PM candidate to be picked after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

"The Congress, after its defeat in the three states, should take lessons from it. It has to shun the Zamindari culture. It can’t treat its partners as its subjects. To ensure that the INDIA bloc wins, it must make Mamata Banerjee, who is a three-time chief minister and three-time union minister, and other senior leaders the face of the INDIA bloc," TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh informed media. 

#WATCH | Kolkata, West Bengal: On INDIA alliance, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh says, "...Mamata Banerjee has proved that it is possible to defeat the highest level of BJP...Mamata Banerjee will be a credible face but we are not demanding that Mamata Banerjee should be projected as the… pic.twitter.com/ey75xjiLvJ

— ANI (@ANI) December 18, 2023

The Congress fought alone and lost assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states to the BJP: Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.

Expressing unhappiness with the performance of the grand old party, Ghosh said: "The Congress has repeatedly failed to defeat the BJP. On the other hand, the TMC under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee has the record of defeating the BJP umpteen number of times."

The West Bengal Congress unit reacted angrily to this comment, with spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy asserting: "We don’t need lessons from the TMC on how to fight against the BJP. It is the Congress, which has been consistently fighting against the BJP, unlike the TMC which on several occasions has compromised with the saffron camp."

According to TMC insiders, the party is eager to speed seat-sharing negotiations, develop a shared narrative, and finish the manifesto in order to mount a credible challenge to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Banerjee declared in New Delhi that the prime ministerial candidate for the INDIA bloc will be determined after the 2024 general elections, expressing confidence that the alliance will address issues such as seat-sharing and beat the BJP.

She disputed claims that the coalition had wasted time in organising, saying, "It is better late than never," and expressed optimism that an alliance between the TMC, Congress, and the Left is viable in West Bengal.

Her words elicited severe rebukes from the state's CPI(M) and Congress.

"The TMC has hardly any role in seat-sharing as it does not have any presence in other states. And in West Bengal, all of us are aware that the TMC and BJP are two sides of the same coin," CPI(M) MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya was quoted by PTI in its report.

Soumya Aich Roy, the Congress leader, stated that the party already has an alliance with the Left in West Bengal.

In the state, the Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front are running against both the TMC and the BJP, he added.