Lok Sabha Elections 2024: CPI(M), Congress trying to help BJP against TMC in West Bengal, says Mamata Banerjee

The West Bengal Chief Minister said, 'The CPI(M) and Congress are contesting in minority-dominated seats so that they can help the BJP by cutting into TMC's votes.'

Bhagwangola, Murshidabad: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged that the Congress and CPI(M) had fielded candidates in the constituencies with a large number of voters from the religious minority community to cut into her party’s votes and help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“The CPI(M) and Congress are the two eyes of the BJP in West Bengal. If you are voting for them, then you are voting for the BJP,” she said.

"The CPI(M) and Congress are contesting in minority-dominated seats so that they can help the BJP by cutting into TMC's votes,” she said, addressing a rally at Bhagwangola seeking votes for Abu Taher Khan, her party’s candidate in Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency.

She also targeted the Congress and the CPI(M) in another rally in the neighbouring Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency, where her party has fielded Khalilur Rahman, who had won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections securing 43.15 per cent votes.

Abu Taher Khan, who had won the 2019 polls, is now facing a tough challenge from Mohammad Salim, the CPI(M) state secretary and the Left Front’s candidate in Murshidabad.

Salim is also being supported by the Congress, which entered into an electoral understanding with the CPI(M), leaving behind past animosities between the two parties in West Bengal.

The CPI(M) is also supporting the Congress’s Mortaza Hossain in Jangipur.

The Muslims constitute over 60 per cent of the electorate in Murshidabad and Jangipur parliamentary constituencies.

These are among the state’s nearly 15 constituencies, where the voters of the religious minority community could play significant roles in deciding the fate of the candidates.

With the TMC apprehensive about a shift of its minority votes to the Congress and the CPI(M), Banerjee targeted the two parties in her rallies in the two constituencies on Monday.

“There is no I.N.D.I.A. alliance in West Bengal. Here, the CPI(M) and Congress are working for the BJP,” the Chief Minister said.

The BJP has fielded Dhananjay Ghosh and Gourishankar Ghosh in Jangipur and Murshidabad respectively.

Banerjee accused the BJP of resorting to divisive politics and using the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) as a political ploy in the elections. She said that the UCC would not benefit the Hindus anyway.

“Whenever there are elections, they use one issue or the other to flare up communal tensions. This time they are talking about the UCC and propagating that it is against a particular community. But this UCC is nothing but a political rhetoric, and Hindus in no way will benefit from it,” she said.

Banerjee claimed that the voting pattern and turnout percentage in the first two of the seven phases of polling in the Lok Sabha elections had signaled that the BJP had already lost.

She predicted that the BJP would be routed in the remaining five phases too. “The defeat of the saffron camp is only a matter of time,” she said.

The TMC supremo accused the BJP of “peddling lies” about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

“The CAA is a trap to turn legal citizens into foreigners. Once they implement the CAA, updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will follow. We will allow neither the CAA nor the NRC in West Bengal,” Banerjee said.