Kolkata: Continuing its spate of attacks against the Congress, the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday called the 136-year old party “indifferent”, “battle-fatigued, “overburdened” and “incapable” of carrying the baton as the main opposition against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Mamata Banerjee-led outfit’s latest assault on the Congress came in an editorial in its Bengali mouthpiece Jago Bangla, which also made clear the party’s plans to position itself as the pivot of an opposition combine by declaring that the Trinamool was the ‘real Congress” and ready to take on the responsibility to be at the forefront of an “all-out fight” against the BJP nationally.
Justifying its intense efforts to spread the party organisationally across a large number of states, the Trinamool said the BJP has to be removed from power in the 2024 general elections.
“Our party holds that the BJP is the number one enemy of the country, and so it has to be ousted from power(at the centre) in 2024. Else the country’s democracy, federal structure and communal amity will be in danger,” the editorial said.
Pointing out that the BJP suffered a huge defeat against the Trinamool in the Bengal assembly polls earlier this year, the Trinamool’s mouthpiece, however, cautioned that the influence of the saffron outfit had by no means come to an end.
“The BJP has spread its venom in state after state. This party has to be uprooted. That’s the reason the Trinamool is increasing its strength in a number of states,” the editorial said, pointing to the headway, the party has made in Goa, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“The Trinamool will announce its presence in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Assam next,” it said.
Tearing into the Congress, the editorial said it has failed to resist the BJP despite being the principal opposition party at the centre.
“Congress is indifferent, battle-fatigued, overburdened, and riven by internal squabbles and intra-party complications. It is incapable of carrying on the baton (of resisting the BJP).”
“But time does wait for none. Somebody has to come forward. Trinamool will take on the task. Trinamool is the real Congress. It will take this message to the people,” the editorial added.
The Trinamool was formed on January 1, 1998, after Banerjee – now West Bengal Chief Minister – broke away from the Congress saying the parent party was unwilling to take on the then entrenched Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led Left Front government in the eastern state.
Banerjee and the LF fought a bitter battle for over two decades, and finally, the Communist-led government was voted out in 2011 after a record-34-year reign.
