Ekla Chalo Re: TMC to go alone in 2024

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee declares that they will not go with any other political parties

NEW DELHI | Updated: 06 March, 2023 5:33 pm IST
Bengal CM and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee

In a major jolt to the opposition unity dream, West Bengal’s mercurial Chief minister Mamata Banerjee declared that her Trinamool Congress (TMC) will contest the 2024 general election alone.

The TMC chief declared that in 2024, her party will align only with people and not with any other group.

“In 2024, we will see an alliance between Trinamool and the people. We will not go with any of the other political parties. We will fight alone with the people’s support,” CM Banerjee said.

“Trinamool Congress is enough to fight these three forces together (Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and Left). We have done that in the 2021 Bengal assembly elections, we will do it again. There is no need to worry, as we will work even harder now. What our government has been doing for its people, no other government in the world can show these results,” the TMC chief says in furtherance.

The development came after the party received a poor response in the recently held elections in Tripura and Meghalaya. In Tripura, despite the presence of a sizeable Bengali-speaking population, the party performed poorly – picking up just one per cent of the vote share.

They won six seats in Meghalaya, where they were the main opposition party after 12 Congress MLAs, including former CM Mukul Sangma, crossed over.

“The BJP, Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) have a ‘give-and-take relationship’. In the coming days, we will end their ‘political drama’. It is our challenge. BJP cannot even touch Trinamool,” CM Banerjee thundered.

When asked about Congress storming the TMC bastion of Sagardighi in the recently held bye-election, CM Banerjee said, “Those who want to defeat the BJP, I believe they will vote for us. At the same time, I believe that the ones giving their vote to the CPI(M) and Congress are actually voting for the BJP. This truth has come to light today itself.”

In the 2021 West Bengal assembly election, TMC managed to secure power for the third consecutive time. However, the BJP made an impressive jump from three seats in the previous assembly to 77 seats in the current assembly. Interestingly, the BJP walloped the CPI-M to become the main opposition party in the state.

It will be interesting to see how TMC fares without political strategist Prashant Kishor, who charted the party’s success in the 2021 assembly election.

The upcoming panchayat election will be a big test for Didi and her party as they decide to hum ekla chalo re, the anthemic song by the late Rabindranath Tagore.

Didi’s decision could also be seen as the result of a growing rift between the TMC and Congress. While both parties never shared a camaraderie since the indomitable CM Banerjee parted ways with the Grand Old Party to chart a new course.

The differences between the two parties reached new heights during the campaigning for the Meghalaya election, where Rahul Gandhi made a direct attack on the party and Didi’s nephew, the equally temperamental Abhishek Banerjee, hit back at Congress with equal disdain.

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