Bengal would determine as to who the next Prime Minister of India would be, Trinamool Congress feels. The State ruling party which was planning to clinch at least 35 out of 42 seats also hopes Chief Mamata Banerjee would play an “important role” in Delhi after 2014 general elections.
In an apparent indication that the Bengal Chief Minister would also vie for the top job, senior party leader and Trinamool all-India general secretary Mukul Roy told a rally that as “Trinamool Congress will decide the fate of the next Government at the Centre so Bengal will determine as to who the next Prime Minister will be.”
The top Trinamool leader was recently sent by his party chief to Kerala to strengthen the party’s organisational network there and explore chances of alliances with other smaller regional parties.
The Trinamool was also planning to put up candidates in Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Assam and parts of North East, inside sources said adding the Chief Minister would herself campaign for her party in those States.
Roy said his party was going from strength to strength in Bengal ever since it roared to power in the State in 2011.
“We have been blessed by the people in panchayat elections, we have been blessed by them in the municipal polls. There is huge expectation and belief among the people that Mamata Banerjee is the only leader who can deliver the goods,” Roy said adding “this expectation has created a momentum in her favour and in favour of the Trinamool Congress which is why it can easily be predicted that our party will play an important role in Delhi and Bengal will decide the next Prime Minister.”
Sources in the Trinamool said the party was sticking to its stand of going it alone in this year’s general elections. “We have already made it clear that at current rate of popularity Mamata Banerjee would not need a second party to back her in the elections” a senior party leader who recently was removed from a State ministry said insisting “as no party will get a clear mandate in the Centre the role of the Trinamool Congress will become all the more important.”
He said his party’s goal was to emerge as the third largest outfit in the Centre “so that all other parties have to depend upon the Trinamool Congress for the formation of Government in the Centre.”
He added “the prime goal of the Trinamool Congress was to put a ‘non-Congress-non-BJP-non-left’ alliance in power as it is clear from the goings on that regional parties will have the say in Delhi this time round.”