Voting for the Cong, Left same as pressing NOTA button: Abhishek
Gosaba/Khardah: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday claimed that voting for the Congress and Left Front would be in no way different from opting for the NOTA button as he sought to woo electorates here ahead of the October 30 bypolls to four Assembly seats. He also stated that the people of India know that Mamata Banerjee is the only person who can oust the BJP at the Centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Addressing two meetings at Gosaba in South 24-Parganas and Khardah in North 24-Parganas—in support of party nominees, namely, Subrata Mondol (Gosaba) and Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay (Khardah)—he insisted that the TMC supremo is emerging as the undisputed leader from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the "spearhead" to fight and defeat the Modi-Shah regime in the next general election.
Banerjee said TMC will open its offices and spread the organisation in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Meghalaya soon. "We receive hundreds of letters every day urging us to open offices in Meghalaya and UP to get rid of the autocratic anti-people BJP government. We have opened our party office in Goa and rest assured we will oust the BJP in the Assembly election from there in February 2022. We will also oust the BJP government in Tripura where the Assembly election will be held one-and-half-year later," he said. Banerjee condemned the attack on TMC Rajya Sabha member Sushmita Dev and party workers at Tripura on Friday.
Taking a dig at the Congress and Left, he said the two parties had firmed up alliances to stop Mamata Banerjee from winning elections and ended up as losers.
"Congress and CPI (M) had allied and later entered into an electoral alliance with Indian Secular Front just to create a dent in the minority vote to help the BJP. Both Congress and CPI(M) have been washed away," he said adding: "The difference between Congress and Trinamool is that the former was defeated by the BJP in the past seven years while TMC has defeated the BJP during this period."
He said that of the national parties which include BJP, Congress, CPI(M) and NCP only Trinamool have never surrendered to the pressure tactics of the BJP. "After losing the 2021 Assembly eleccordBJP has tried various terror tactics like putting pressure on the former Chief Secretary besides they have issued summons five times on me to go to Delhi and face the ED. Neither ED nor CBI can do anything to me because I have done nothing wrong and have not mortgaged my spinal chord. BJP's terror tactics will not work in Bengal which has given birth to great souls like Rammohan Roy, Rabindranath, Swami Vivekananda among others," said Banerjee.
Calling BJP leaders "a bunch of liars," he said: "Union Home minister Amit Shah had promised the people of Gosaba before the 2021 Assembly election that Sunderbans would be a separate district and Rs 2 lakh crore would be spent for the development of the area. These are all blatant lies and he did not turn up after BJP's landslide defeat in the Assembly election."
In Khardah he urged people to vote for Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay as "the people will not find such a genuine and energetic MLA."
