Lok Sabha elections 2019: Congress’s poor performance led to the rise of BJP, says Mamata Banerjee

Attributing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s rise to Congress’ “poor performance”, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said India’s grand old party won’t be able to the form the next government on its own and will need support from other opposition parties.

“While the defeat of the BJP is certain, the Congress will not be able to form the government on its own. It will need help from other parties. At the same time, I would like to say that if the Congress performed properly, BJP would not have risen in the country,” Banerjee said in Raigunj.

The Congress hit back immediately. “Mamata Banerjee is herself responsible for providing the BJP with oxygen in West Bengal to secure minority votes,” said Somen Mitra, party’s state chief.

“The Trinamool chief paved the way for the BJP to set up its base in Bengal in 1998, by entering a pact with the party. Mamata Banerjee’s party is weakening the Congress in Bengal every day, even as we fight the BJP nationally. She should look at her past,” said Abdul Mannan, Congress legislator.

Before the 2001 Bengal assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress, then a BJP ally, walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and joined hands with the Congress. A few months after the assembly elections, in which the party was trounced by the Left Front, it returned to the NDA fold and Banerjee became Union railway minister.

At another rally in Islampur, Banerjee attacked the BJP over the Ram Mandir issue. “All these (Ram Mandir construction) are fake promises,” she said.

General secretary of BJP’s Bengal unit , Sayantan Basu, said, he hoped that the new BJP government would receive TMC support for temple construction.