Not meeting Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee signals TMC's intent to expand to northern states

The Congress and the TMC did not officially make it clear if the proposed meeting between the top leadership of both the parties had been cancelled or postponed

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday signalled Trinamool Congress’s intent to expand to the northern states, as she admitted former Congress MP from Haryana, Ashok Tanwar, to her party.

“I would like to go to Haryana as soon as Ashok Ji (Ashok Tanwar) would organise a meeting and invite me. Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi are not far for us,” Banerjee said in New Delhi, even as a proposed meeting between the Trinamool Congress supremo and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi did not take place on Tuesday, amid signs of growing acrimony between the two opposition parties.

Also Read | Congress leader Kirti Azad joins TMC

The Trinamool Congress also indicated its willingness to expand in Bihar, as it opened its door for former national general secretary and national spokesperson of the Janata Dal (United), Pavan K Varma, and cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad, who had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to join the Congress in February 2019. Both Varma and Azad met Banerjee in New Delhi on Tuesday and formally joined her party.

Banerjee addressed the supporters of Ashok Tanwar, who had quit the Congress and formed a new political party, Apna Bharat Morcha, a few months back. She stressed on “defeating the BJP for the sake of the nation”. “There should be slogans hailing all the states across the country. If the states are not strong, the nation cannot make progress,” said West Bengal Chief Minister, who will call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.

Ever since it trounced the BJP in the assembly elections in West Bengal earlier this year and won a straight third term for its supremo in the office of the Chief Minister, the Trinamool Congress has been trying to expand to other states, beginning with Tripura and Goa.

Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the general secretary of the Trinamool Congress, arrived in New Delhi on Monday. They were expected to meet the Congress’s first family, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday. The meeting, however, did not take place, and the Trinamool Congress chief spent the day, welcoming to her party the newcomers, including Ashok Tanwar, a former confidante of Rahul Gandhi, and Kirti Azad, who had contested the 2019 polls as the Congress’s candidate for Dhanbad in Jharkhand.

The Congress and the Trinamool Congress did not officially make it clear if the proposed meeting between the top leadership of the two parties had been cancelled or postponed. But the acrimony between the two opposition parties came to the fore over the past few weeks. The Congress accused the Trinamool Congress of trying to split the secular votes to help the BJP, particularly in Goa. The Trinamool Congress on the other hand criticised the Congress for not doing enough to unite the opposition parties to take on the BJP.

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