Front page article in the mouthpiece of Trinamool Congress, wake up bangla “Rahul could not, Mamata is the real opposition face”, has triggered a political storm of speculation about the party chief being projected as the prime ministerial face of the opposition for the 2024 elections.
“We cannot think of opposition without Congress. But Rahul Gandhi has not been able to stand in front of Narendra Modi as the face of the opposition. Now the main face of the opposition is Mamta Banerjee. We will campaign across the country with popular leader Mamata Banerjee as the face of the opposition,” said the article published on Friday.
The state Congress leadership reacted sharply to the piece, with West Bengal Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury saying such developments would create a rift in opposition unity.
“When there is talk that the opposition will fight together, why compete to project someone as the prime minister? It is for the people of India to decide whether Rahul Gandhi is an alternative to Narendra Modi or not. No political party can claim about it,” said Mr. Chowdhury. The Congress MP said that it is not right to project someone as the Prime Minister even before the race for 2024 starts.
The development assumes significance as the Congress has not fielded any candidate against Ms Banerjee in Bhabnipur.
The country needs an opposition. I have known Rahul Gandhi for a long time. But I am compelled to admit that he has not been able to project himself as the face of the opposition against Narendra Modi. The whole country wants Mamata Banerjee to be that face,” the article quoted TMC Lok Sabha MP Sudip Bandopadhyay as saying at an event at the University of Calcutta. Ministers Tapas Ray and Kunal Ghosh and other Trinamool Congress leaders were present in the program.
Responding to the article, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said, “How many people read wake up bangla. TMC is doing printing to project Mamata Banerjee as the Prime Minister. We all know what happened in Nandigram.”
However, the TMC leadership maintained that ‘Mamata is the real face of the opposition’. TMC leader and minister Firhad Hakim said that in the 2021 West Bengal elections, Ms Banerjee fought like a tigress and defeated the entire BJP leadership.
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