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Congress ‘limiting itself to Twitter space’ instead of strengthening opposition alliance: TMC
“We want an alliance to be formed against the BJP. We have said this to the Congress, too. But it is least bothered and shows a lackadaisical approach,” the TMC said in its mouthpiece daily newspaper ‘Jago Bangla’.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Thursday said that the Congress was “limiting itself to Twitter space” instead of strengthening the alliance of opposition parties against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The remarks were made in an editorial column in the TMC’s mouthpiece daily newspaper ‘Jago Bangla’, news agency PTI reported.
“We want an alliance to be formed against the BJP. We have said this to the Congress, too. But it is least bothered and shows a lackadaisical approach,” PTI reported, citing an excerpt from the editorial.
“The Congress is limited to Twitter space. The party has taken no initiative to build an opposition alliance. In 2014 and 2019, too, the Congress had done the same,” the editorial further said.
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The TMC also reiterated that the party would expand its base to other states and put up a fight against the ruling BJP at the Centre. This came on the day party supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee began her three-day visit to poll-bound Goa, her maiden trip to the coastal state.
“As I prepare for my maiden visit to Goa on 28th, I call upon all individuals, organisations and political parties to join forces to defeat the BJP and their divisive agenda. The people of Goa have suffered enough over the last 10 years,” Banerjee tweeted earlier in the week.
Referring to the Bengal chief minister’s proposal during a meeting of opposition parties on August 20 this year for a joint steering committee, the editorial said there has been no progress on that matter since then. The meeting was convened by Congress' interim president Sonia Gandhi.
However, the editorial also noted the TMC would “keep the doors of alliance with the Congress open,” and said, “We have never said that an opposition alliance will be forged without the Congress. But we will not waste our time for them by sitting idle.”
Lately, the two parties that have been supportive of forming an united opposition alliance have been making similar remarks about each other. Earlier on Sunday, veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram, who is also the party’s election observer for Goa, told news agency PTI in an interview that the TMC and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would be “marginal players” and the Congress was "best positioned" to defeat the BJP in the assembly polls.
