Indebted to everyone, want I.N.D.I.A. to stay well: Mamata on leaders backing her to head bloc

Banerjee last week expressed her dissatisfaction with the functioning of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc and signalled her intent to take charge of the alliance if given an opportunity.

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, on Wednesday thanked the I.N.D.I.A. leaders, who extended support to her recent move to position herself as a claimant to the leadership of the opposition bloc.

“I am indebted to everyone for the respect they have shown to me. I pray for their good health. I want them as well as their party to stay well. I also want I.N.D.I.A. to stay well,” Banerjee told journalists in Digha, a coastal town in the state’s Purba Medinipur district, even as her party attacked both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress for "disrupting the parliamentary proceedings and not allowing others to raise issues important to people of their respective constituencies."

Her comment came after stalwarts like Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasad Yadav extended support to her claim to the leadership of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc even as the differences between the Congress, the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha, and some of its partners grew over the past few weeks and came to the fore during the ongoing parliamentary session.

Banerjee recently said during a TV interview that apart from continuing as the chief minister of the state, she could lead the I.N.D.I.A. as well, if given the opportunity to do so, and she would not need to shift her base from Kolkata to spearhead the opposition alliance and take on the ruling BJP.

Her comment came even as the TMC MPs refraining from joining their counterparts in the Congress and other I.N.D.I.A. parties in the protest in both Houses of Parliament against the alleged links between the BJP and billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani, who was recently indicted in a US federal court for allegedly conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud. The TMC MPs also opposed the disruption of parliamentary proceedings by the Congress on the issue of Adani’s link with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I had formed the I.N.D.I.A. bloc, now it is up to those leading the front to manage it. If they cannot run the show, what can I do?” she wondered during the interview with News18 Bangla. “I would just say that everyone needs to be taken along,” she said, making a subtle bid to question the Congress’s leadership role in the I.N.D.I.A. bloc.

Sharad Pawar, the supremo of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Chandra Pawar), extended support to her, saying that the TMC chief was a capable leader and had the right to show her intent to lead the opposition alliance. Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) also said that the party was open to discussing the possibility of someone from a party other than the Congress leading the I.N.D.I.A. "We will support Mamata...Mamata Banerjee should be given the leadership (of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc),” Lalu Yadav, the veteran leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal, said.

The TMC supremo, herself, had played a key role in projecting Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as the face of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc ahead of the parliamentary elections. The TMC, however, went solo in West Bengal, without any electoral understanding with its I.N.D.I.A. bloc partners like the Congress and the CPI(M) in any of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The Congress and the CPI(M), however, had forged an alliance and had been accused by the TMC of trying to help the BJP in West Bengal. The TMC ended up winning 29 LS seats from the state, while the BJP could win only 12, six less than its 2019 tally. The Congress won just one seat, while the CPI(M) drew a blank.

The TMC also won all the six assembly constituencies, where bye-elections were held last month, despite the widespread three-month-long outrage across the state over the August 9 rape and murder of a young doctor in Kolkata. Buoyant by the latest wins, the TMC advised the Congress to introspect and analyse why it had failed to stop the BJP’s juggernauts in Maharashtra and Haryana, while the parties led by Banerjee and Hemant Soren succeeded in defeating the saffron party in West Bengal and Jharkhand.