TMC sets target of winning 40 seats in 2024 Parliamentary polls

Kolkata: What is being termed as an effort to increase its representation in the Parliament to further strengthen its fight to retrieve funds owed to Bengal by the BJP-ruled-Centre, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has set a target of winning 40 seats in the 2024 Parliamentary election.

The battlefield for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls is being prepared by the TMC which seeks to increase its seats at the Parliament.

Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has clarified in a booth-level meeting at Bhagwangola in Murshidabad that all workers and leaders should start preparing the ground to bring home 40 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.

Such an announcement by the party comes at a time when the BJP leader and Union Home minister Amit Shah threatened to dislodge TMC from Bengal.

Shah, during his recent public meeting at Birbhum, urged the people to give BJP 35 seats from Bengal in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024, following which the Trinamool Congress-led-state government may collapse in 2025 before the state Assembly elections in 2026, according to him.

His comments were widely criticised by the members of the ruling party with its chairperson and state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee demanding Shah’s resignation from the post of Union Home minister for allegedly plotting to “overthrow a democratically elected state government”.

Abhishek has just set a higher target for the party workers and leaders. According to him, winning 40 seats will give TMC the power to return to Bengal its due funds which the BJP-led-Centre is allegedly withholding unlawfully.

He said that the party does not care if it wins one less seat than what it won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls but if that loss amounts to deprivation of funds meant for the people of this state then TMC must win majority seats. West Bengal has a total of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Political observers remarked that the reason behind setting a target of winning 40 seats is also the recent jolt to the party where the Election Commission withdrew its ‘national party’ status.

Winning majority Lok Sabha seats in Bengal will increase the party’s representation in the Parliament by giving it more MPs and a greater say in national issues.