West Bengal Chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party will not be able to cross 200 seats in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Coming down heavily at the BJP, the Trinamool Congress chief said "during Bengal elections in 2021, they (BJP) said '200 paar' but in Delhi (2024 polls) they won't even reach 200." "BJP is in power, that’s why they do whatever they want. But they don’t understand power is temporary, chair may come and go but democracy will continue forever. The Constitution will continue forever, there may be some amendments. But this constitution cannot be bulldozed. That’s why they (BJP) will not win the upcoming 2024 election, news agency ANI quoted Banerjee as saying.
Mamata Opens Up On Stripping Of TMC's National Party Tag
Banerjee, who was speaking to reporters at West Bengal's state secretariat, said that her party's name will remain the All India Trinamool Congress. "I will resign if it is proven that I called up Amit Shah over TMC's national party status," she said, rejecting Bengal's leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari's claim that she had made the call.
Adhikari on Tuesday claimed that Banerjee had dialled Shah after the Election Commission revoked TMC's national party status to request him to repeal the decision.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, said, "It was the norm to review the national party status of all parties after 10 years. That would mean the next review should have been in 2026. But they did it in 2019."
"My party's name will remain the 'All India Trinamool Congress'. If the BJP has any problem, they can approach the Election Commission and we will approach the common people," she thundered.
The ECI withdrew the national party status of the TMC, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) last week. Reacting to Adhikari's assertion, TMC on Tuesday also said there is not even an iota of truth in it.
"Suvendu Adhikari is a habitual liar. We have seen how he has earlier brazenly lied about several political developments. Having a national party status or not is notional, it does not impact the growth of the TMC," party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh had said.
The TMC was formed on January 1, 1998, after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left the Congress to form her own political party.
After two unsuccessful attempts in 2001 and 2006, the party came to power by defeating the Left Front in 2011, riding the crest of massive public outrage against the communists.
The party, in recent years, has tried to expand its footprint across the country to pose a direct challenge to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, the efforts did not bear much fruit.
