In a curious response to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s claim of 35 out of 42 Bengal Lok Sabha seats in 2024, Abhishek Banerjee, the second in command of the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress, on Sunday said his party would bag 240 out of 294 Assembly seats in 2026, prompting critics to wonder whether the TMC was giving up fight in 2024.
Banerjee, who has of late been touring North Bengal as a part of a 2-month-long state-wide public relations exercise ahead of the panchayat elections, said that nothing — “no amount of brow-beating or threat” — could cow him or his party down and that “we won 212 Assemblies in 2021 … but in 2026 we will win 240 out 294 Assembly seats simply by the strength of our performance”.
He said, “Like Mamata Banerjee defeated the BJP in 2021 when they said ‘abki baar doso paar’ (this time 200 seats), in 2026 also they will face a humiliating defeat,” but he failed to explain why he was focusing first on 2026 instead of 2024.
Iterating that his aunt and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had outperformed all the parties, he said, “While the BJP leaders won 18 seats in 2019 but failed to perform, Mamata Banerjee, after winning each of her elections, had unleashed a string of projects like Laxmir Bhandar, Kanyashree, Sabuj Saathi, Swasthya Saathi and others.”
Daring the BJP to defeat the TMC “politically and not with the help of the central agencies”, Banerjee — whose party is presently under intense pressure in the wake of a host of scams bursting in its face — said, “Let us fight in the field with our performances … let us put up our report cards in public and then have a duel… we are sure the BJP will be wiped out.”