West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, on Monday, claimed that had the Opposition parties – in the fray against the BJP – resorted to seat-sharing then such an election outcome could have been averted. She attributed the defeat of the anti-BJP camp to Congress, and not to the people.
Banerjee spoke in the House in West Bengal Legislative Assembly, participating in the proceedings. The BJP MLAs, however, were not present inside the House when she spoke.
The Bengal Chief Minister, while mentioning the vote shares, observed that around 12 per cent vote-share was eaten into by the anti-BJP alliance partners themselves. She said that this is reality, and a fact.
Banerjee said that the point to share the seats had repeatedly been emphasised, and seat-sharing would dissolve this problem. Had one party asked for seats from another party – say six seats – it could have been given three seats, and as such seats were not offered the defeat occurred, and it gave BJP advantage of winning 70 seats, she said.
The winning is not because of some excellent performance but because of the vote-splits, Banerjee said, adding that the victory is due to the vote-cut. She mentioned that there are smaller parties, some aligning with the BJP, and there are many that are against it, yet a wrong (election) policy was in place.
Banerjee reminded that only campaigns or advertisements don’t serve the purpose of winning elections, strategy is also required, and strategy has to be blended with ideology. With strategy, work needs to be done in the field too, she said, pointing out a possible flaw in the working of Opposition parties, indirectly.
The chief minister alleged that the central agencies, totally, are working in favour of “them” – the BJP. She termed the election outcomes to “agency selection”, presumably hinting at the alleged misuse of power of central investigation agencies, the Opposition has been vocal about.
“I still feel that if seat-sharing takes place, then the BJP government will not return to power in 2024,” she said. “This is the defeat of Congress, not of the people’s,” she stated, maintaining that people’s verdict is against the BJP, and expressed confidence that I.N.D.I.A will work together, and rectify mistakes, if any, learning from the same.
Banerjee is not attending the upcoming meeting of the I.N.D.I.A alliance, scheduled for this week. Talking to reporters in the evening after visiting Raj Bhavan Kolkata, Banerjee said that she has no information about the I.N.D.I.A meeting, and so she has scheduled a programme in north Bengal that stretches over six to seven days. She said if there was information then the programme wouldn’t have been scheduled and would have definitely participated in the meeting.