Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee came out in support of her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal in the row over the Centre’s recent ordinance, saying that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) would back him for the control over the appointments and transfer of bureaucrats.
“Despite the SC verdict, the Centre brought an ordinance. We must all unite to oppose this move. This is a good chance to defeat the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). The TMC will oppose this ordinance, and we will go to the Supreme Court,” Mamata said Monday in a press conference at the West Bengal state secretariat.
As Parliament has to ratify the ordinance within six months, Mamata said that the vote in the Rajya Sabha on a Bill to convert it into a legislation will be a “semi-final before the 2024 elections”.
The meeting of the two chief ministers was the first since Mamata and Kejriwal came face-to-face briefly in April 2022 in New Delhi.
The TMC and Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had contested the election last year in Goa, but they ended up splitting the opposition votes. Buoyed by the 2021 mandate in Bengal, the TMC was looking to expand nationally to become the principal challenger of the BJP. When the poll result was out, the BJP emerged victorious for the second consecutive time.
A year later, the AAP is now a national party courtesy the good run in Punjab and Gujarat while the TMC no longer enjoys the status after a string of poor electoral results in Goa, Tripura and Meghalaya.
“Mamataji is like my elder sister,” said Kejriwal after meeting the TMC supremo to garner support against the Centre’s move to snatch back powers from the AAP government.
Top AAP leaders Bhagwant Mann, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Atishi were present with Kejriwal.
“The day we came to power in Delhi back in 2015, our powers were snatched away from us by the Centre. Eight years later, we won in the Supreme Court and the next day the Centre overturned the verdict and brought in an ordinance. Coming days, people should remove this arrogant BJP government. The TMC will support us in the Rajya Sabha and if we win this fight then it will be a great move ahead of 2024,” he added.
Kejriwal is reaching out to the opposition ranks for support in its direct fight against the Modi government in the fight against the ‘services’ ordinance. This week, Kejriwal will also meet Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Uddhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav faction) to seek their support as well.
When asked about the Congress’ support, both Kejriwal and Mamata didn’t seem eager to respond in the press briefing where only one question was allowed from the media due to paucity of time.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury alleged that both parties gang up against the Congress.
“We will oppose anything that is against the Constitution. Not because it’s Kejriwal or Mamata, it is the Constitution. The Congress doesn’t take up issues only keeping the vote share in mind like the AAP and the TMC. The AAP joined hands with the BJP in Punjab to wipe out the Congress. Mamata and her brother Kejriwal do the same thing, they don’t fight against the BJP,” the Congress MP said.
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh, meanwhile, mocked Mamata claiming that she was “scared”.
“Mamata Banerjee tried a similar gimmick in 2019 where she invited opposition leaders and fed them fish and rice, but see how that failed to uproot Narendra Modi. She is scared and doesn’t want to fight as her seat tally was reduced in 2019. Now every week, one opposition leader is coming and trying to convince her to fight against Modi because no one else has the guts,” Ghosh said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)