By PTI
KOLKATA: Amid a spate of desertions from the Congress, the TMC on Thursday launched a fresh attack on the grand old party, calling it “incapable and incompetent”, and asserted that Mamata Banerjee’s party can’t be blamed for Congress leaders jumping the ship.
Amid reports of 12 of 17 Congress MLAs in Meghalaya, including former chief minister Mukul Sangma, likely to switch over to the TMC, the party, in an editorial titled ‘Incompetent Congress’ in its mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’, said that it will venture to other states to put up a fight against the BJP.
“The Congress has serious problems. Whenever any of its leaders join the TMC, it criticises us. It seems that its West Bengal unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has more problems with it than the central leadership,” it said.
“The Congress has failed to put up a fight against the BJP. On the other hand, Mamata Banerjee and the TMC have shown how to defeat the Modi-Shah juggernaut. That is the reason why the TMC is getting requests to open units in other states. Leaders are willing to join us. They feel that Mamata Banerjee is the alternative face. The TMC can’t be blamed for incompetence and incapability of the Congress to fight against the BJP,” the editorial read.
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Referring to Banerjee’s proposal to set up a joint steering committee during the August 20 opposition meeting convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the mouthpiece said that nothing has moved forward in that direction since then.
“The Congress is limited to its air-conditioned rooms and social media. They haven’t taken any initiative to build the opposition alliance. They have even failed to build up a movement against the BJP. Be it Goa or Tripura, it is the TMC which is fighting on the streets,” it said.
The editorial asserted that the TMC will continue to increase its strength and venture out to other states.
“Our party supremo wants a pan-India national alliance against the BJP. We have never said that an opposition alliance will be forged without the Congress. But if the Congress can’t perform its duty, then we have nothing to do. They can’t blame us for their incompetence,” it said.
In a massive jolt to the opposition Congress in Meghalaya, 12 of its 17 MLAs led by Sangma will join the Trinamool Congress on Thursday, said one of the defecting lawmakers H M Shangpliang.
ALSO READ | Congress leader Kirti Azad, former JDU general secretary Pavan Varma join TMC
The development is a major boost for West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee, who has been trying to expand her party’s footprint beyond her native state.
The TMC is trying to enter Tripura’s political arena in a big way by contesting a bitterly fought municipal election.
It will also contest the assembly elections in Goa with the intention of pitching Banerjee firmly as the foremost anti-BJP opposition voice.
The TMC has been up in arms against the grand old party over its alleged failure to fight against the BJP.
Last month, the relationship between the Congress and the TMC reached a new low after Banerjee’s party took a dig at Rahul Gandhi’s defeat at Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, wondering whether the Congress would erase the defeat through a Twitter trend.
The bonhomie between the Congress and the TMC was strained recently after ‘Jago Bangla’ claimed that Banerjee, and not Rahul Gandhi, has emerged as the face of the opposition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
