Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will start a two-day trip of Goa from Monday in an apparent bid to strengthen her party Trinamool Congress’ organisational strength in that State.
The Chief Minister who is being accompanied by her nephew and party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee will address three public meetings party sources said adding there were chances of Banerjee’s meeting leaders of some other “like-minded” parties so as to form a broad-based anti-BJP alliance.
In any case however Mamata who enjoys a good chemistry with her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal is unlikely to strike a deal with his Aam Aadmi Party.
AAP which too is trying to capture the tiny western State however said that it would not go into any alliance with the TMC. In a statement it said that there would be no agreement between TMC and AAP in Goa as the party would follow the Ekla Chalo formula in that State.
The TMC which has called upon the regional parties to unite has already entered into an alliance with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party. Meanwhile, the Bengal BJP on Sunday came down heavily on the Trinamool Congress for playing a discriminatory politics wondering why the party which was doling out Rs 500 to unemployed women under the much touted Laxmir Bhandar scheme was promising to give Rs 5,000 to the women of Goa should it come to power in that State.
Earlier on Saturday, TMC MP Mahua Moitra had said that under a proposed Griha Laxmi scheme, Rs 5,000 would be transferred to a woman of every household per month as guaranteed income support to counter inflation once her party came to power there.
“What the wretched women of Bengal --- who voted overwhelmingly for Mamata Banerjee in this year’s elections --- have done that they would be discriminated against by her with her party deciding to pay Rs 5,000 to Goan women in place of a paltry Rs 500 to the women of Bengal,” said Bengal BJP leader Sayantan Basu.
The TMC immediately reacted saying the BJP was being a “party of the rich for the rich and by the rich” would never understand the woes of the common man. “Mamata Banerjee’s social services schemes have earned accolades world over and there is no reason for the TMC to take sermons from the BJP,” party leader Partho Chatterjee said.
The Bengal ruling outfit also attacked the BJP for “stealing Bengal’s projects and using them for advertisements in other States” after a promotional advertisement of Tripura Government showed Kolkata flyover and tram lines vouching for the development initiatives that it had taken in that State. The BJP however promptly removed the pictures and transferred the blame on the advertisement agencies. “This was a mistake of the advertisement agencies and the Government must not be held responsible for this,” said Bengal BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.
This was the second time that such goof up had taken place when a previous advertisement of the Uttar Pradesh Government showed the photograph of the Maa Flyover of Kolkata.