Mamata Banerjee proposes expanding alliance as parties prepare to challenge BJP-led NDA.
With the INDIA bloc meeting held on September 30 and all parties deciding to take on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the special intensive revision of the voter rolls, sources indicated that Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has also offered to bring more parties into the opposition bloc to make it stronger to take on the BJP-led NDA. Banerjee had indicated that the INDIA bloc could accommodate more Opposition parties, including the DMK, and that the question of who should lead the alliance would be decided collectively.
Sources said that during the meeting of the INDIA bloc at Constitution Club here, the Trinamool Congress chief also suggested bringing the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal into the opposition fold. Sources said that the former West Bengal Chief Minister will take steps to speak to her former counterpart Patnaik in the coming days to persuade him to join the opposition front. However, sources in the BJD said that no such formal talks have started and that it is very early to comment on the matter. Earlier this week, BJD Rajya Sabha MP Sasmit Patra also stated that “BJD is not part of the INDIA alliance. Our leader and party president Naveen Patnaik has made our stand crystal clear on two major fronts.” Meanwhile, sources in the Trinamool Congress said that during the INDIA bloc meeting, Banerjee had talked about including the BJD in the opposition fold.
On Thursday, Banerjee addressed a press conference and, when asked whether parties such as the DMK should join the INDIA bloc, she said, “These parties have problems at the local level (with the Congress). In some places they are facing elections. But I am in touch with many parties.” She added, “When the country is facing a crisis, our priority should be to save the country.” Banerjee said she had a good relationship with BJD chief and former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and had recently met DMK leader Kanimozhi. She also said she had spoken to CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby, a political rival of the Trinamool Congress in Bengal, and that he had sent her a letter that she forwarded to the Congress. It is worth mentioning that the DMK had stayed away from the INDIA bloc meeting after Congress joined hands with the TVK in Tamil Nadu. AAP had already announced in June 2024 that it was no longer part of the INDIA bloc.
With the Opposition parties all set to take on the BJP and the CEC in the coming days, the INDIA bloc is looking to strengthen itself. But the most interesting part of the CWC meeting was the discussion on Nitish Kumar leaving the INDIA bloc. According to sources, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh remarked that the INDIA alliance should not have let JD(U) chief and former Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar leave in 2024. “The political situation would have been different,” Singh told the meeting, according to sources present at the meeting. But Singh’s assertion regarding Kumar was promptly shot down by Sonia Gandhi, who, according to sources, said Nitish Kumar was bound to leave anyway. “He did not wish to remain in the INDIA alliance. It was for the best that he left when he did. That was where he was headed; he had been actively seeking ways to exit the INDIA bloc,” Sonia Gandhi told the meeting
