TMC will ‘ally’ with people for 2024 polls: Mamata

For the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool’s ‘alliance’ will be with the people, and the party will fight it out on its own, party chief Mamata Banerjee stated on Thursday.

Apparently displeased at the result of the Sagardighi Assembly constituency by-election, where the party lost its three-term won seat to the Left-backed Congress candidate, Mamata alleged that behind the loss is BJP’s ‘transfer’ of votes to the Congress candidate, and claimed that an ‘immoral alliance’ was in place.

When asked, what is her take on an alliance against the BJP in 2024 and will the TMC sync with the Congress-CPM, Mamata said: “The alliance will be between the TMC and the people. We will not go with any of them (Congress, CPM). We will fight on our own with people’s support. Those who wish to defeat the BJP will vote for us, I believe, and those who vote for Congress-CPM, will vote for the BJP, I believe,” she said.

The ‘truth’, she said, was revealed by the bypoll result.

When told that it’s being projected that the Congress-CPM alliance may dominate the political space in the future, Mamata said that even in 2021 (Assembly elections) the two parties had an alliance. The TMC chief alleged that then the parties had their votes ‘transferred’ to the BJP, and in the present bypoll the opposite has happened.

Mamata cautioned that in days to come the TMC will eliminate the drama of Congress-CPM-BJP. The pretension – she referred – allegedly is political in nature, and comprises propaganda. “We will definitely finish it off. It’s our challenge. BJP cannot touch TMC,” she said.

Mamata said she is not blaming anyone, as in a democracy there could be a minus (loss), and a plus (win).