Duty of Bengal to show the path to country: Rahul Gandhi
India will not forgive the citizens of West Bengal if it does not show the right path to the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said.
India will not forgive the citizens of West Bengal if it does not show the right path to the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said, amid the party’s growing differences with its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partner and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state.
Gandhi’s remarks, during the party’s ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ in north Bengal’s Siliguri town, came amid days after TMC president and chief minister Mamata Banerjee ruled out any alliance with the Congress in the state in the coming Lok Sabha elections. It also came hours after the opposition INDIA bloc received a fresh setback, when the Janata Dal (United) quit the alliance to join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“No other state showed me as much love as you did,” Gandhi told the crowd as the yatra, which began on January 14 in Manipur, resumed after a two-day break.
“Bengal is a special place. People here took the lead in fighting the British. It is your duty to show the road to the nation just as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or Vivekananda did. If you don’t, the country will not forgive you,” the former Congress chief said.
With party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury by his side, Gandhi neither mentioned the impasse over seat-sharing in Bengal nor the crisis in Bihar. The TMC has cited Chowdhury’s frequent attacks on Banerjee as its key decision to go solo in the polls.
“The intellectual prowess of Bengal’s people is unique. This can unite the nation. This is your responsibility,” Gandhi said.
Congress’s communication chief Jairam Ramesh reiterated that the TMC is a “pillar of the INDIA coalition”. “Mamata ji’s principal target is to defeat BJP. So is ours,” he told reporters.
The ruling TMC, however, remained unmoved and said the Congress “did not show the respect other parties deserve”. “Rahul Gandhi rightly said that Bengal shows the way to the nation. Bengal showed how the anti-BJP movement should be taken forward. Mamata Banerjee named the coalition INDIA. But Congress did not show the respect other parties deserve. Acting like an agent of the BJP, Chowdhury was busy targeting Banerjee, using unparliamentary language. He should have been removed,” TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said.
