West Bengal elections: Mamata Banerjee owes apology for opening door to BJP: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury

New Delhi: As the Mamata Banerjee-BJP fight rages on in poll-bound West Bengal, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has said “CM Mamata Banerjee is being “paid back in the same coin”, after she had “unleashed state machinery” on the Opposition and “poached MLAs” in her attempt to destroy the Congress and the Left.

“Trinamool legislators and MPs are being poached by BJP in the same illegal manner as Mamata has been poaching MLAs of Congress and Left. If BJP has established national notoriety for poaching Opposition legislators, Trinamool has acquired regional notoriety for the same,” Chowdhury told ET in an interview about West Bengal politics, adding “in the last Lok Sabha polls, she deployed Suvendu Adhikari for months in my constituency to try and defeat me through all means.

Now, BJP is making Suvendu to do the same against Mamata. Her chickens have come home to roost. I am still standing with the people, fighting the twin danger of Trinamool and BJP alike, and she should know that”. On why Trinamool, Congress and Left can’t join hands against BJP in Bengal, Chowdhury said: “As leader of the ruling party and as chief minister, the onus was on Mamata Banerjee to shed her arrogance and reach out to the Congress and others to forge an alliance against BJP. Congress and I have repeatedly cautioned her to not become too arrogant after her victory and that one swallow doesn’t make a summer. But she didn’t listen. For 10 years, her government and Trinamool Congress did everything to destroy us and persecute our workers. And if we now side with Trinamool, the BJP will have the entire opposition space to itself”.

On Mamata accusing BJP of destablilising her government, he said: “On the contrary, Mamata Banerjee owes a public apology to the people for opening the political doors of West Bengal to BJP by forging Trinamool-BJP alliance during the 1999 Lok Sabha polls and for her joining Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP.

By hailing BJP and RSS as nationalist outfits, she allowed space for “communal” politics of BJP in Bengal’s secular polity. Again, by focusing entirely on demolishing Congress and the Left during her 10-year reign, she allowed BJP to grow.

In return, BJP secretly helped Trinamool to defeat Congress-Left alliance in 2016 polls because they knew they could finish off Trinamool thereafter”. On the Congress-Left alliance, Chowdhury said; “After Congress and Left fought together in 2016 polls, CPM called off the alliance, saying we didn’t transfer votes. We fought separately all subsequent by-polls and 2019 LS polls, in which Congress won two seats and CPM lost all seats, forfeiting deposits in all but one seat.

Now, CPM has proposed an alliance and the Congress high command will take a decision. The CongressCPM workers are already moving together as now they both are victims of Trinamool’s “reign of terror”.

Asked about the risk of CongressLeft margalisation in a TrinamoolBJP mega fight, Chowdhury said: “Both Trinamool and BJP are unleashing state power, violence and huge amounts of money to kick up a lot of dust.

We may appear a late starter, in reality people of Bengal are fed with the divisive and violent politics of Trinamool and BJP and are looking at Congress-Left alliance as the only democratic alternative”.