West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee routinely lashes out as her biggest rivals, the Left parties, but this time she has expressed support for them in her fight against their “common enemy” that is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Tripura elections.
During a heated debate with rival Communist Party Marxist (CPM) MLA Sujan Chakraborty, Banerjee said, “You (Left parties) are on the verge of losing elections in Tripura. I would have been happy had you won these elections for a greater good (keeping BJP away). But your arrogance and ego have led to your downfall.”
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) party chief implied with her attack that she already perceives BJP as the winner in the recently-concluded Tripura polls. She blamed Left parties for so being busy fighting with her government in Bengal that BJP managed to seize peoples’ support and grow its chances of winning in the North-Eastern state.
Banerjee said Left parties lacked “confidence and spirit” when it came to countering the saffron party’s election campaigns involving bigwigs like PM Narendra Modi, national party president Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh. She said that if the Left parties had portrayed any seriousness on their part to counter BJP, her TMC would have even supported them even though it does not possess a very big presence in Tripura.
Voting for 59 of Tripura’s 60-seat assembly took place on 18 February, while polling on the one remaining seat was postponed to 12 March due to the death of CPI(M)’s candidate there. Results for the elections will be declared on 3 March, and many by-polls have predicted big numbers for BJP this time.