Congress working as the ‘B team’ of BJP in Bengal, says Abhishek

Kolkata: Dubbing the Congress leadership in Bengal, led by its state president Adhir Chowdhury, as the ‘B team’ of the BJP, Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee launched a scathing attack on Chowdhury for singling out Trinamool Congress and its chairperson Mamata Banerjee for jibes.

“Adhir Chowdhury and the CPI(M) leadership in Bengal are bent upon showing our party chief (Mamata Banerjee) and TMC in poor light. They have never been vocal about people’s rights at the backdrop of the BJP government at the Centre holding back about Rs 7,500 crore financial dues to the state for the 100 days’ work project or depriving 11.33 lakh poor people of their rightful sum. You will never see him (Adhir Chowdhury) or the CPI(M) being critical of the role of state BJP leaders in the likes of Dilip Ghosh, Sukanta Majumdar or Suvendu Adhikari and vice versa. This makes it crystal clear that BJP is using its B team — Congress and CPI(M) to portray TMC in bad light,” Banerjee said addressing a public meeting at Hariharpara in Murshidabad on Sunday.

He further slammed Chowdhury who earlier had a strong foothold in Murshidabad district, before TMC swept the 2021 Assembly polls winning 20 out of 22 seats in the district for his mistrust of the state police.

“Adhir Chowdhury has Central forces like CRPF and BSF as his guards that come under the aegis of the Union Home department which is led by Amit Shah. It is Shah who wants to usher in NRC in Bengal and it is the BSF which has been allegedly indulging in atrocity among the common people living in bordering areas. So, the common people are knowledgeable enough to realise who has a setting’ with the BJP,” he added.

Banerjee appealed to the people to vote out all those Opposition political parties that have never stood for the welfare of the people in Bengal or raised their voices for people’s rights. ”If you keep them, they will act as ulcers and then will augment to cancer,” he maintained sarcastically.

Taking a dig at the Centre he reiterated: “The Modi government has been in power for 9 years but not a single development has taken place in Murshidabad while the Mamata Banerjee government has carried out a host of projects in the past 12 years. Let BJP come with their report card. We will also produce our report cards. We will win by a 10-0 goal.”

He added that it is the TMC that fights against BJP. “Did Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury take up the development issues with the Centre? Did he ever ask the Centre to clear the state’s dues?” Banerjee asked.

Banerjee, who has been on a mass-outreach drive in the state since April 25, started his 13th day (Sunday) by interacting with her party colleagues at Bhagabangola camp in Murshidabad.

He then interacted with the people of Jiaganj and listened to their demands and followed it up with a roadshow at Rejinagar. After that, he interacted with spirited athletes in Beldanga where he even kicked the football amidst a huge applause of people and then held a road show at Nowda. The last of his programmes was the public meeting at Hariharpara.

Abhishek has also set a target of his party winning 40 seats in the 2024 Parliamentary elections. Bengal has 42 Parliamentary constituencies. The party had bagged 22 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“Let us work towards the target of getting 40 seats in the coming Lok Sabha polls. If we start working from now, if you can reach the people in a bigger way, if you highlight how despite winning polls BJP has done precious little for people’s betterment, we can very well achieve that target,” Banerjee had said on Saturday.

The BJP now has 18 Lok Sabha MPs from Bengal.