Giving a call for “BJP hatao, desh bachao”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said her State “would show the way and the Trinamool Congress-propelled Federal Front would play the catalyst” to the inevitable change of 2019 when the Narendra Modi Government will be thrown out of power “heralding a new India, free from hatred, lynching, and Talibani style violence”.
Mamata also affirmed that TMC will go it alone in Bengal and win all the 42 lS seats in the State in 2019.
She said TMC would commence the process on January 19 through a mega all-party rally at Brigade Parade Ground. “I will invite all the leading politicians of the country, including the Congress and the CPI(M), to unite against the BJP which has created a Talibani atmosphere,” she said.
And the lead bringing about the change will obviously be taken by the TMC-propelled Federal Front, Banerjee said from the TMC Martyrs’ rally — observed every year to remember the 13 people who had died in a police firing in a Youth Congress rally led by her in 1993.
The left Front promptly said they would not attend Mamata’s January 19 rally and Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said, “The CM will get the reply from the high command.”
The BJP announced its own counter saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi would address a rally at the same venue on January 23, Subash Chandra Bose’s birthday.
The rally saw a number of big names joining the Trinamool Congress in Banerjee’s presence. Amongst the notables were former Rajya Sabha member and BJP leader Chandan Mitra, former CPI(M) MP Moinul Hasan and four Congress MlAs namely Sabina Yasmeen, the niece of late Congress patriarch ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury, Samar Mukherjee, Abu Taher and Akhruzzaman.
Attacking the Centre, she thundered: “Those ruling at the Centre have blood on their hands. The Prime Minister is asking the State Government to control lynching but I want to ask him why can’t he control his party president, Ministers and partymen who are provoking Taliban-style sentiments all around the country.”
Every day people are being lynched, she said referring to a killing that took place on Saturday in Rajasthan and insisted the people had decided in their minds to remove the BJP Government. “Such is the anger among the masses that in 2019 the BJP will not even get 150 seats,” she asserted.
“From Tamil Nadu, AIADMK (BJP’s ally) will win none and Stalin will win, from UP if SP and BSP fight jointly then the BJP will lose 50 seats, in MP they will get one-fourth of what they got last time. In Rajasthan, they will get five and in Gujarat they will get zero. In Bihar and Odisha their condition will be equally miserable,” she said, adding “at this juncture the Federal Front will play a big role to consolidate the Opposition unity and navigate it to power.”
As for Bengal, much of the BJP’s sabre-rattling will come to an end as the party will not win a single seat from the State, she said. Indicating that she was not going for any alliance with the Congress or other parties, Banerjee said, “The Trinamool Congress will fight alone and win all the 42 seats from Bengal.”
Saying that the Prime Minister’s expectations to contest a no-trust vote in 2024 also, will remain a pipe dream, she said, “let them first cross 2019 and then they should dream of 2024.”
“People are wondering as to how a party which cannot even make a tent will be able to make country,” Banerjee said taking a dig at the BJP for failing to properly erect the scaffolding at Prime Minister’s recent rally at Midnapore where many people were injured when it collapsed.
“The pandal collapse shows that they can only break and not make just as they have been breaking the country along communal and caste lines by creating an atmosphere of hatred,” she said.
Attacking the BJP for unleashing its killer brigades and where that was not possible the Central agencies, she said, “They put our senior leaders to jail on frivolous grounds. Whenever there is a challenge from someone they label scam charges and send CBI and ED against them but the biggest scam in this country has been the demonetisation.”