Mamata Banerjee calls for united Oppn to defeat BJP, TMC says not entering into any alliance

Trinamool Congress said that the the party was not entering into any structured alliance with any party, but pointed that the opposition should come together over several issues. 

West Bengal Trinamool Chief Minister, who has been meeting leaders of major non-BJP parties recently, on Wednesday called for a united opposition front to defeat the saffron party. Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress said that the the party was not entering into any structured alliance with any party, but pointed that the opposition should come together over several issues.

“If all regional parties come together, then it will be easy to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party,” she said during an interaction with civil society members in Mumbai. She is expected to meet NCP chief Sharad Pawar later today.

While the TMC supremo could not meet Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray due to the latter suffering from health issues, she met Shiv Sena leaders Aaditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut on Tuesday.

Banerjee made it clear she was keen to build ties with Shiv Sena and NCP. However, Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik made it clear that it was impossible for the Opposition to come under one umbrella without the Congress.

Her meetings with opposition leaders comes amid a strain in the ties between the TMC and Congress. The Grand Old Party has recently been uncomfortable with the TMC’s expansion drive that has seen it poaching its leaders — from Assam to Goa, Meghalaya to Bihar.

The Trinamool Congress has been openly against Congress for its alleged failure to take on BJP. It had recently termed the grand old party as “incapable and incompetent” and had asserted that TMC cannot be blamed for its leaders jumping the ship.

The relationship between the two parties had hit a new low last month after Banerjee’s party took a dig at Rahul Gandhi’s defeat at Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and had wondered whether Congress could erase it through a Twitter trend.

TMC mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’ had claimed that it was Banerjee, who is also the West Bengal chief minister, and not Rahul Gandhi, who has emerged as the face of opposition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.