TMC to contest 2024 Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh, says party chief Mamata Banerjee
“In Uttar Pradesh, I am not going to contest assembly polls but I am going to support SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on 8th Feb 2022,” West Bengal CM and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee said.
The Trinamool Congress will contest the Parliamentary elections in 2024 from the state of Uttar Pradesh, party chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Wednesday. During the announcement, she also confirmed that the party will not contest in the upcoming state assembly polls in UP but will support the Samajwadi Party (SP).
“In Uttar Pradesh, I am not going to contest assembly polls but I am going to support SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on 8th Feb 2022. We (TMC) will contest from UP in Lok Sabha polls (in 2024),” news agency ANI quoted the Bengal CM as saying.
Further, Banerjee also made clear her intentions to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national stage in 2024 and emphasised on the need to win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in her own state.
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“We have to make Bengal stronger in the next 2 years so that we get all 42 seats (in 2024 LS polls),” she said. “[We] have to chase the BJP away. Uniformity will be there in TMC. I will do my first working committee meeting in Delhi,” she added.
She also said that her party’s unit in Goa is now ready and her vote share in the recently concluded Tripura Municipal elections was over 20%. Notably, the TMC debuted in Tripura and is in Goa’s assembly poll fray also for the first time.
Earlier in the day, Banerjee was re-elected unopposed as the chairperson of the TMC, after which she said that the party must stay united to win in the 2024 parliamentary polls. She also issued a stern warning against infighting and factions within the party.
“I want all my party leaders and workers to promise they will not fight among themselves. Infighting will not be tolerated....groups within the party will not be tolerated. There are no different groups in TMC, the party is one united group,” she said. “The party has to fight hard to win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the next polls in Bengal. We have to take along everybody,” she added.
Meanwhile, SP vice president Kiranmoy Nanda had previously informed that Banerjee will be visiting the state to meet with the party’s chief Akhilesh Yadav and hold a virtual press meet in Lucknow and Varanasi. He had also mentioned that the TMC won’t contest in the UP polls.
