Mamata says not aware of any INDIA Bloc meeting

Trinamool Congress might skip the upcoming meeting of the opposition’s INDI alliance on December 6 as party supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she was not aware of any such meeting.

While addressing the media on Monday, the West Bengal Chief Minister said that her party was unaware that the INDIA grouping is planning to hold a sitting in New Delhi. She also said that since the party was not informed about the meeting, she scheduled an event in North Bengal.

“I don’t know, I have got no information so I kept a programme in North Bengal. If we had the information, we wouldn’t have scheduled those programmes. We would have gone (for the meeting), but we have not received any information,” Banerjee said.

The TMC chief also said that she would have attended the meeting if she received the information beforehand. However, Banerjee’s statement came after her party blamed Congress for its failure in the assembly polls.

This comes after Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday called for the meeting of the opposition bloc on December 6 after it faced huge defeat in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The December 6 meeting will be held after a gap of three months since the last one in Mumbai on August 31 and September 1.

The opposition parties are likely to hold discussions on the plans for next year’s Lok Sabha elections as well as the loss in three out of four states in the assembly elections held last month.

The recently concluded Assembly polls that saw the BJP win three states will not impact the INDIA bloc but the opposition parties need to work harder for the Lok Sabha polls next year, opposition leaders said on Monday.

The BJP swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday, inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, a day after the Congress lost assembly polls in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, key aides of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar made a push for a “credible face” like the JD(U) supremo to lead the INDIA coalition.