Both the Congress and the TMC also accused each other of being hand in glove with the BJP. Attacking the Congress, Banerjee wondered why it should expect that the TMC would support the grand old party “when it fought every seat in West Bengal in the last assembly polls”.
Kolkata: The relationship between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress reached a new low after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the grand old party of being an “unreliable” ally that had compromised with the BJP.
The comment prompted a sharp retort from the Congress which charged the TMC with taking “supari” (contract) from the saffron party to finish it.
Both the Congress and the TMC also accused each other of being hand in glove with the BJP. Attacking the Congress, Banerjee wondered why it should expect that the TMC would support the grand old party “when it fought every seat in West Bengal in the last assembly polls”.
“There cannot be different policies in different states. We left the Congress as it had cheated us. It had cheated the people of Bengal. During our first government formed in 2011, the Congress left us midway; we did not leave the alliance then,” the TMC supremo said on Monday.
The TMC was also part of the Congress-led UPA-2 government from 2009 but walked out of the alliance after the Manmohan Singh administration decided to allow FDI in the retail sector.
Claiming that she had left the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) due to rising fuel prices, the TMC boss wondered why the Congress tied up with the CPI(M) to defeat her party in the last two assembly polls.
On being part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government from 1998 to 2004, Banerjee said she had aligned with the NDA based on the Common Minimum Programme.
“When we were part of NDA, there was no attack on minorities,” she claimed. “The Congress has compromised with the BJP, but we will never compromise. We are not like them who put up a facade of opposition at the front and go for a secret understanding. We are forced to venture out in other states as the Congress has failed to put up a fight (against the BJP),” she said.
Referring to her recent visit to Goa where the party will contest the assembly polls next year, Banerjee said her posters were torn and she was shown black flags. Without naming Rahul Gandhi, she said, “A Congress leader was also visiting Goa during the same time, but neither his posters were torn nor was he shown black flags.”
The Congress has compromised with the BJP, Banerjee claimed. Later in a tweet, the TMC described the present Congress leadership as the “biggest insurance of the BJP”.
“@INCIndia’s present leadership is BJP’s BIGGEST insurance! In WB, we’ve been fighting & successfully defeating BJP since 2001. Instead of accusing others, INC should put its house in order to effectively fight BJP or let others who’ve the will & ability to fight them nationally,” the TMC tweeted.
Reacting to the allegations, West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury accused the TMC of taking “supari” from the BJP to finish the grand old party.
“It is for this reason that they (TMC leaders) are constantly attacking the Congress. They should be ashamed of themselves for compromising the fight against the BJP. The TMC is the Trojan horse of the BJP in the opposition camp,” Chowdhury, who is also Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, said.
He said Banerjee should explain how BJP-RSS gained ground in West Bengal in the last 10 years. “In 2011 when the TMC government came to power, the number of RSS shakas was merely 200-250. Now the number is in few thousands,” he said.
After defeating the BJP in the assembly polls, Banerjee visited Delhi in July and held parleys with opposition leaders to explore ways to cobble together an alliance of anti-BJP parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. She met Congress president Sonia Gandhi during that visit.
The relationship between the Congress and the TMC soured after the TMC took a dig at Rahul Gandhi’s defeat at Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by wondering whether the party would erase the defeat through a Twitter trend.
In its mouthpiece “Jago Bangla,” the TMC had also claimed that party supremo Mamata Banerjee, and not Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, has emerged as the face of the opposition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
