Congress leader Jairam Ramesh dismissed any rift with Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the seat sharing issue ahead of the Lok Sabha election, asserting that talks were still going on. Mr. Ramesh also said that the focus of the INDIA bloc was on the upcoming Lok Sabha election and not the Assembly elections.
Responding to the remarks by Ms. Banerjee, who has expressed doubts that the Congress would not win even 40 seats in the Lok Sabha election, Mr. Ramesh said that the Congress was going ahead and taking together all the parties of the Indian National Inclusive, Developmental Alliance (INDIA).
“On June 23 last year, 18 political parties had gathered in Patna on the invitation of Nitish Kumar. Again, the INDIA bloc meeting took place in Bengaluru on July 17-18, in which 28 political parties were present, and then on August 31 and September 3, the third meeting was held. Since day one, the only motive of the Congress party was to make the INDIA bloc stronger. I accept that there are some minor issues with West Bengal but let me say that the INDIA bloc has not been formed for the Assembly election — it is for the Lok Sabha election,” Mr. Ramesh said in Bokaro.
Accompanied by young Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar and Jharkhand Congress chief Rajesh Thakur in Bokaro, Mr. Ramesh stressed that keeping the Lok Sabha election in mind, everyone wanted to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Ms. Banerjee.
Ms. Banerjee had earlier said that she had offered the Congress party two seats but the latter had rejected this.
“Even Ms. Banerjee’s priority is to defeat BJP, and this is what she has been saying continuously. All the time, the Congress party is trying its best to strengthen the INDIA bloc and resolve seat sharing, which would be accepted by all political parties. The TMC is a party of the INDIA bloc and such remarks keep on coming from her [Ms. Banerjee’s] side, as well as from our side. Our only goal is the Lok Sabha, not the Assembly election,” Mr. Ramesh said.
Slamming Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who recently snapped ties with the mahagathbandhan alliance in the State, Mr. Ramesh said that despite Mr. Kumar’s exit, 27 parties of the INDIA bloc were intact. He also claimed that, one day, the Congress would form the government in Jharkhand.
Earlier in the day, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, as part of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, reached the Godhar Kali locality of Dhanbad, disembarked from his vehicle, and set up a chaupal (community space) to listen to people. Mr. Gandhi sat on the khat (cot), with smoke rising from a coal fire, as villagers spoke to him of the problem of unemployment.
People settled in the area collect coal from collieries and burn it to prepare pora coal. They then fill that coal in sacks and take it to hotels on bicycles. The income they earn in this way is their only source of employment.
From Dhanbad, Mr. Gandhi entered the Bokaro Steel City, where he accused the Central government of attempting to privatise the Bokaro Steel Plant. The former Congress chief then took a noon break at the Zaika Restaurant. He’s expected to halt for Sunday night in Ramgarh district.
Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of converting Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) into the “friends sector” by selling them to industrialists close to him.
He also accused Mr. Modi of engaging in ‘divide and rule’ as the British colonial power had done. Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar accused the BJP of destabilising the Jharkhand government.
