JOIN USWary of the growing influence of the BJP in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee appears to be ready to accept Left leaders and cadres to join her party.
While Mamata has called for the Left to stop the erosion in its ranks, her own ranks are seeing a rise as MLAs from both the Left and the Congress are joining her fold.
Banerjee’s fears over rising number of people joining the saffron party found expression in her address during the July 21 rally in Kolkata when she asked the Left to join her ranks, calling herself the only viable option to combat the common enemy, the BJP. Her fears also seem to have come true as a large number of Trinamool and Left supporters have been joining the BJP over the last two months.
Mamata’s call for the Left to join hands with her found further credence with three Congress MLAs and a Left MLA being inducted into the Trinamool officially on July 21 further dwindling the strength of the Opposition in the Assembly.
While seven Congress MLAs have switched sides, the induction of the Left MLA, further consolidated the Trinamool’s strength in the 294-seat House, where it already enjoys a two-third majority.
Insiders pointed out that the induction of the four Opposition MLAs can only come as a sigh of relief to the Chief Minister since the switch-over comes at a time when a large number of workers from the Left, Congress as well as Trinamool recently joined the BJP.
Insiders informed that while there has been a large outflow of workers from both Trinamool and the Left, figures provided by the state BJP suggest that the party has 50,000 new members in the post-Lok Sabha phase.
While there has been an influx of supporters on both sides, the largest exodus till date has been the defection of around 1,300 Forward Bloc supporters form the Left camp to the BJP last week.
Around a similar number from the Left party also joined Trinamool last week, turning the induction of new members into a game of one-upmanship for both the Trinamool and the BJP. Trinamool went one up as it inducted hundreds of local leaders and workers of different opposition parties at Monday’s rally.
Claiming that the Trinamool chief is scared of the BJP, state BJP president Rahul Sinha said: “She (Mamata) is panicking because of the tremendous rise of BJP in Bengal.” He also refuted Mamata’s allegations of the BJP being a communal force and called Trinamool a communal party instead for its “overtly pro-Muslim policies”.
“We are condemning the tactics of appeasement adopted by Trinamool. By indulging in such vote-bank politics, the CM herself is creating communal divide in the state,” Sinha said.