BJP ‘looted’ Bengal polls like they did in UP: Akhilesh upon meeting Mamata

Kolkata: After meeting Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that the Bharatiya Janata Party had won the recent elections in West Bengal through manipulation and intimidation, just as they had done in Uttar Pradesh in 2022.

Akhilesh told Mamata that she had not lost the elections. “The fight to save democracy will continue, and we stand beside you,” he was quoted by the TMC supremo, telling the outgoing chief minister of the state during the meeting.

The SP chief was the first leader of the I.N.D.I.A bloc to come to Kolkata and meet Mamata and the TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee after the BJP had a landslide victory in the just-concluded assembly polls in West Bengal.

Yadav alleged that the Bengal polls witnessed "multi-layered mafia tactics" involving the BJP, the Election Commission and "underground elements."

“What happened in Uttar Pradesh was repeated in West Bengal. The polling agents of the non-BJP parties were threatened, and votes were conducted under fear. The central paramilitary forces were used to ensure the defeat of the parties opposed to the BJP,” he alleged. “The election was looted. The BJP, the Election Commission and underground elements together conducted this election”.

Mamata, herself, alleged that the BJP had “looted” at least 100 seats from the TMC through manipulation with the help of the EC.

The BJP scored 207 seats while the TMC could win only 80 in the 294-member state assembly.

Mamata and Abhishek earlier received calls from Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress, Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (UBT), Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party, and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, who expressed solidarity with the TMC leadership.

The TMC supremo said that she would strengthen the opposition bloc to oust the BJP from power at the Centre.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, recently described the BJP’s victory in the West Bengal and Assam assembly elections as a “theft” of the popular mandate. He accused the saffron party of making attempts to “destroy” democracy in India.