Work together rather than talk down, TMC tells Congress

Notwithstanding the recent spat between the two parties, the Trinamool Congress still wants the Congress to swing into action and immediately take the initiative to set up a steering committee with representatives of all opposition parties to launch and coordinate a nationwide campaign against the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The party led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, also made it clear that it would not wait if the grand old party kept wasting time.

“Let's work together on this, rather than talk down to us,” Derek O’Brien, a Trinamool Congress leader and a member of the Rajya Sabha, said on Wednesday, sending out a message to the Congress. “There is no need to fight. Our single goal is to defeat the BJP.”

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Banerjee herself had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi during a visit to New Delhi in July and proposed setting up a steering committee with the leaders of all the political parties. The Trinamool Congress leaders alleged that the Congress had not taken any such initiative over the past few months to take the campaign by the opposition parties against the BJP-led Government at the Centre from Parliament to the streets.

O’Brien’s comment came even as the Trinamool Congress consolidated itself further in West Bengal by trouncing the BJP in all the four assembly constituencies, where bypolls were held on October 30 last. Banerjee had earlier this year stalled the BJP’s juggernaut and led her party to win a third term in power in West Bengal, despite extensive campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The Trinamool Congress is now trying to expand beyond West Bengal and targeted Tripura and Goa. Banerjee opened her party’s door for the leaders of the Congress – like Luizinho Feleiro in Goa and Sushmita Dev, a former Lok Sabha MP from Assam, to oversee its campaign in neighbouring Tripura.

Read | Making sense of Trinamool's attack on Congress

Banerjee said during a visit in Goa that Modi and the BJP were gaining strength only because the Congress was not serious about fighting against it. West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee’s president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury responded by reminding the Trinamool Congress that it had once been an ally of the BJP and its supremo, herself, had also been a minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government.

The Congress also swept the bypolls in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, beating the BJP, which, however, did well in Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

The Trinamool Congress leaders said that the results of the bye-elections had proved that the BJP could be defeated, not only in West Bengal, but in other states too. They, however, pointed out that only if the opposition parties worked together, they could pose a formidable challenge to the BJP in the coming elections.

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