NEW DELHI: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee launched a scathing attack on Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Thursday, following the circulation of a viral video where he purportedly suggests that voting for the BJP is preferable to voting for the TMC.
Without directly naming Chowdhury, Mamata criticized, “The Congress’ leader in Lok Sabha is saying, ‘vote for BJP or Congress’. Think about it, there is neither ideology nor ideals. Some selfish people like him have sold off the country.”
She further accused “this Congress leader” of being a “BJP agent” and “a traitor of the INDIA bloc.”
In the alleged video, Chowdhury, the incumbent MP and candidate from Baharampur, West Bengal, can be seen addressing a public gathering and stating, “It is necessary for Congress and the Left to win. If they don’t, secularism will be at stake. Voting for TMC means voting for BJP, so it’s better to vote for BJP only. Don’t vote for BJP, don’t vote for TMC.”
The TMC, already perturbed by Chowdhury’s repeated criticism of the party, responded to the video by holding him accountable for the breakdown in seat-sharing negotiations with Congress and branding him “anti-Bengal.”
In a social media post, the TMC alleged that Chowdhury, after acting as the “eyes and ears of BJP in Bengal,” has now become the “voice of the BJP in Bengal.”
“Listen to how the B-Team member is openly asking people to vote for the BJP – a party that refused to release Bengal’s rightful due and deprived our people of their rights. Only a Bangla-Birodhi can campaign for the BJP, which has repeatedly insulted Bengal’s icons,” the TMC asserted.
Responding to Chowdhury’s statement, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh clarified that his party’s objective is to diminish the BJP’s presence in West Bengal and reiterated that the TMC is part of the INDIA bloc.
“I haven’t seen the video and don’t know in which context he has said this but I want to make it clear that Congress party has just one aim that is to heavily decrease the number of seats of the BJP that it has got in 2019,” said Ramesh.
In West Bengal, a three-way contest is unfolding between the TMC, the Congress-Left alliance, and the BJP. Currently, the TMC holds 22 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, while the BJP has 17, and the Congress has two MPs.
