"Sign of desperation": Amit Malviya as Mamata decides to go solo in Bengal in 2024 polls

New Delhi [India], January 24 : Minutes after Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee announced that she will fight the Lok Sabha elections alone in West Bengal without sharing any seat with the INDIA bloc in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell head Amit Malviya said that it is a sign of desperation.
The Trinamool Congress is one of the strongest partners of the INDIA bloc.
"Mamata Banerjee's decision to fight alone in West Bengal is a sign of desperation. Unable to hold her political ground, she wants to fight all seats, in the hope that she can still be relevant, after the polls," Malviya said in a post on 'X'.
Malviya said that the West Bengal Chief Minister wanted to be "the face of the Opposition" but no one had proposed her name.
"Much against her desire, to emerge as the face of the Opposition alliance, no one ever proposed her name. Her several trips to Delhi, to build a national profile, didn't work," Malviya said.
Hitting out at Banerjee over post-poll violence in West Bengal, Malviya said, "She (Mamata) just couldn't hide the blood of post-poll violence and rid herself of the nauseating stink of appeasement politics."
Malviya claimed that Banerjee pitched for Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge as the Prime Minister candidate to save her face and had been building ground to come out of the alliance.
"An embarrassed Mamata, to save face, pitched for Mallikarjun Kharge, ruling herself out in the process. She realised, despite her bluster, she had no currency in the Opposition camp and had been building ground to snap out for long," he said.
The BJP IT cell head said that Banerjee's announcement to contest alone in West Bengal before the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra steps into the state is a "death knell" for the INDIA bloc.
"But the fact that her announcement to go solo comes just before Rahul Gandhi's circus arrives in Bengal, is a death knell for I.N.D.I Alliance...," she said.
The INDIA bloc suffered a huge setback on Wednesday as Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee said that her party declared that the Trinamool Congress would fight alone in Bengal.
"I had no discussions with the Congress party. I have always said that in Bengal, we will fight alone. I am not concerned about what will be done in the country but we are a secular party and in Bengal, we will alone defeat BJP." the TMC supremo said.
"We will decide on what to do at the all-India level. We are a secular party. We will do whatever we can to defeat the BJP. The alliance does not comprise any one party. We have said that they should fight in some states and the regional parties should be left to fight alone in the other states. They should not interfere" she added.
The breakdown in Trinamool and the Congress came after state unit chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury Chowdhury continued his attack on the Bengal Chief Minister. In a news conference on Tuesday Adhir Chowdhury claimed that in the 2011 elections, Mamata Banerjee came to power with the mercy of Congress.
The Trinamool Congress reportedly was willing to offer the Congress a maximum of three Lok Sabha seats of the 42 seats in Bengal. In the 2019 elections the Congress had won two Lok Sabha seats while the TMC had won 22 seats.