Banerjee accuses BJP of making Rahul Gandhi hero via parliament logjam

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to make a hero of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to divert attention from pressing issues by stalling Parliament over his recent remarks in the United Kingdom.

A senior TMC leader said Banerjee, while addressing party workers over phone during an intra-party meeting in Murshidabad district, alleged that the Congress has failed to fight the BJP and has a tacit understanding with the saffron camp in West Bengal. “Our top party supremo, while speaking in our internal meeting over the phone, said that the BJP is deliberately trying to make a hero out of Rahul Gandhi by stalling Parliament over his remarks. BJP is doing this to serve its own interests so that other opposition parties cannot raise issues related to people. They want to make Rahul Gandhi the hero of the opposition camp,” TMC Murshidabad district president and MP Abu Taher told PTI.

An internal meeting of Murshidabad district was held at party office in Baharampur on Sunday evening. Banerjee's comment comes amid chaos in Parliament over Gandhi's remarks during his recent trip to the UK, with both houses failing to transact any significant business in the first five days of the second half budget session.

The TMC supremo's verbal attack on Rahul Gandhi also comes just two days after she announced that she would stay away from both the Congress and the BJP and hinted at possible talks with other regional players ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The TMC also said that the Congress is not the "big boss" of the opposition.

According to Taher, while referring to the bypoll results in Sagardighi, where the Congress wrested the TMC seat, Banerjee said an "unholy Congress-CPI(M)-BJP nexus" was in play in the state. “Mamata didi said that we have to defeat this alliance in the next Panchayat and Lok Sabha polls. She has asked us to launch a united fight in the coming days,” he said. Taher said Banerjee, without naming Congress state president Adhir Chowdhury, accused him of having a "tacit understanding with the BJP".

Alarmed by the bypoll results, Banerjee announced that she would not ally with the Congress in future. Reacting to Banerjee's remark at the party meeting, Chowdhury claimed that it is the TMC that wants to help the BJP. “You (TMC) are fighting against the BJP and keeping an equal distance from the Congress. This only reflects the true nature of parties like TMC which are nothing but Trojan horses in the opposition camp. TMC has joined hands with BJP to protect itself from the clutches of CBI and ED in graft cases,” he said.