Congratulating the people of Karnataka for the “decisive mandate in favour of change”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Saturday that the results are the beginning of the end for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking to journalists at her residence, Ms. Banerjee said that the people of Karnataka had voted against “arrogance, intolerance and agency politics” of the BJP. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson gave the slogan “ BJP hatao, desh bachao (remove BJP, save the country)”, and said that in the next few months, elections to Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will be held and the BJP was going to lose the Assembly polls there as well.
Ms. Banerjee also added that the people of the country want change. She said that all Opposition parties should come together against the BJP and fight the Lok Sabha polls on a “1:1 formula”. She said that in the next Lok Sabha polls, the BJP was not winning seats in States in the south, including Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and in eastern India, in States including Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha as well as in Delhi and Punjab, the saffron party would not do well. The Chief Minister also said that the BJP remained strong in States like Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
No mention of Congress
While Ms. Banerjee congratulated the people of Karnataka and said that even the party of H.D. Kumaraswamy (Janata Dal-Secular or JD-S) has done well in the Assembly polls, she did not make any reference to the Congress. There was no mention of the Congress party in her tweet and in the interaction with journalists. Asked about the Congress party’s performance and Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, Ms. Banerjee refused to comment.
During the day, the CM met Bollywood actor Salman Khan at her residence. Mr. Khan was in the city to participate in an event. Ms. Banerjee said that she was worried about the actor’s security.
