Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee(R) and State Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Credit: PTI File Photos
Baharampore: West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Wednesday asked TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee to come clean on the reason behind not being part of I.N.D.I.A. bloc in the state and alleged that a tacit understanding with the BJP prompted her to "quit" the opposition front.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in January announced that her party will contest the Lok Sabha polls in the state "alone", but will continue to be part of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc at the national level.
“Everybody knows here that an unholy nexus exists between the TMC and the BJP... I am asking her she should spell out why she departed from the I.N.D.I.A. bloc,” he told PTI Video in an interview.
Chowdhury, who is also the Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, claimed that Mamata Banerjee has time and again proved that she cannot be trusted.
He said, “She is an unpredictable and unreliable political personality... When the I.N.D.I.A. bloc came into existence, she started appropriating credit for naming the conglomeration. But after a few days, she started clamouring that she was going to abandon the I.N.D.I.A. alliance like Nitish Kumar. My question is what was the trigger for her to quit the I.N.D.I.A. alliance?”
Banerjee had blamed the Congress for the delay in deciding on the seat-sharing proposals of leaving two seats for the grand old party in Bengal, before resolving to go sole in the state.
The seat-sharing proposals between the Congress and the TMC went haywire after the latter accused the grand old party of making unjustified demands without acknowledging the ground reality.
The Congress is presently contesting the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal as part of an alliance with the Left.
While the Left Front is fighting in 30 seats, the Congress has fielded candidates in 12 out of the total 42 seats in the state.
The TMC has repeatedly blamed Chowdhury, a bitter critic of Banerjee, for the breakdown of the alliance in Bengal and accused him of having a “tacit understanding with the BJP in the state.”
When asked about allegations against him of having a tacit understanding with the BJP, Chowdhury said, “These are old allegations”, which TMC rakes up before every election.
“Here everybody knows that there is an unholy nexus between the TMC and the BJP. Such allegations don’t have any basis. As Murshidabad is a minority-dominated area, they make such allegations during elections,” the five-term MP from Berhampore Lok Sabha seat, said.
Speaking about TMC fielding former India team cricketer Yusuf Pathan from the Baharampore seat, Chowdhury alleged that the ruling party in the state is trying to polarize the elections in his constituency.
“The TMC is trying to drive a wedge among the minority and majority communities in this constituency. They have been exhausting all their resources to propagate that their candidate is from the minority community, and I am from the majority community. But this ploy would be rebuffed by the voters,” he said.
Chowdhury alleged that communal politics suits both the TMC and the BJP.
“We have seen this in previous elections in 2019 and 2021 how both parties have reaped the benefits of communal polarization. But this time, the TMC stands exposed and this formula won’t work,” he said.
The elections to the Berhampore Lok Sabha seat will be held on May 13 in the fourth phase.