BJP won’t even get 17 seats in UP, Congress to win 7-8: Mamata The Bengal CM said
Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav would fare very well.
by Suman Gupta
Although election results are yet almost a month away, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed on Monday that the Bharatiya Janata Party is “losing” in Uttar Pradesh and won’t even get 17 of the 80 seats. She also predicted the future of the other parties in the state. Winning in Uttar Pradesh is considered crucial in guaranteeing chances to form the government at the centre as the state has the maximum number of seats.For example, she said the Congress would win seven to eight seats, whereas Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav would fare very well.
During the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the saffron party won 70 seats and its ally Apna Dal won two seats in Uttar Pradesh. This helped the BJP win effortlessly in the Lok Sabha.
The BJP has often taunted the grand alliance of the opposition parties as the “maha milawat” and “khichdi”, pointing at a lack of cohesion and motive, except that of ousting him from power. Retorting to these jibes, the West Bengal chief minister said there was absolute cohesion among the regional parties. According to her, the parties are in constant touch planning the future course of action
Accusing the prime minister of deviating from a political path in this battle for power and constantly lowering his standards, the CM said she did not speak his language. “He must know that he is the PM and when he is talking, people are listening. Political speech is also about culture. I have been called a goon and whatnot. But I don’t talk like that,” she said.When asked to rate the PM in comparison to the other prime ministers the country has had, she said she could not even rate him as “one” because he had “become worse than a fascist”.
She compared the current situation in Bengal with that of a national emergency and accused the ruling party at the entre of running a parallel government in her state through various agencies, such as the Election Commission.
To elucidate the allegations, she pointed out how the EC ordered the transfer of four police officers at the behest of the saffron party. She also accused the party of attempting to polarise the electorate on religious lines. As per the West Bengal CM, the BJP will be unsuccessful in driving a wedge between the Muslims and “liberal” Hindus of Bengal because they know better than falling for communal politics.
While the BJP claims to win 23 of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, Mamata is confident of a clean sweep. Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier said that 40 of her legislators were in touch with him. The MPs plan to defect as soon as the results of the ongoing elections are out, he claimed.
