Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made a curious move calling on the regional parties to form a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front to fight the coming lok Sabha elections.
Appealing to the “regional parties to launch a united fight” against the current Government, the Chief Minister said that time had come to free the nation from its “misrule” and anti-people” decisions.
Writing on the Facebook, she said, “A time has come to form a federal front in the coming lok Sabha elections.”
“let us talk together,” she insisted. “let us stand together,” she pleaded and appealed to “all the non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to launch a united fight to free the country from misrule and anti-people decisions (of the UPA-II Government) and work together to build a better and brighter India.”
The Chief Minister had a few weeks ago dared the Centre to impose Central rule in Bengal and vowed to dethrone the UPA-II from power.
Banerjee’s move is read in Bengal political circles in terms of her higher ambitions to ascend the prime ministerial chair in the current political melee involving both the Congress and the BJP. Bengal PCC president Pradip Bhattacharya said she was eyeing a South Bloc posting by fanning an anti-Congress euphoria.
Interestingly, Banerjee had a few days ago apprehended danger on her life and declared at a public rally a succeeding lineage of 90 leaders, who had been asked and “put under oath” by her “to keep the Trinamool Congress together after me.” She also warned that she would “descend from above and break the necks” of those who would try to disintegrate the Trinamool Congress.
Banerjee was also in touch with her Bihar and Odisha counterparts, a senior leader in the party said. The party was also planning to consolidate the “huge untapped” Bengali vote bank of Jharkhand and could enter into some kind of alliance mechanism in that State, the leader said.
On whether, she had any talks with other regional parties like Mulayam Singh Yadav or Jayalalithaa, the source spoke in the negative adding efforts were on to open dialogues with them and leaders like Dinesh Trivedi and “another North Indian leader” had been entrusted with the job.
The Chief Minister had walked out on the UPA-II last September following differences with the Congress on a host of issues like FDI in retail, hike in prices of diesel and fertilisers apart from deregulation of lPG.
While these had been the apparent reasons, the underlying causes for her rift with the Congress was alleged refusal of the Centre to grant Bengal a three-year moratorium in paying the interests of an accumulated loan of `2 lakh crore left by the earlier left Government.
The senior leader also said that while the Chief Minister had no personal issues with and leader of the BJP, she was “closely watching the developments in that party” refusing to dwell much on the issue.