In a major development, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged all regional parties to come together and form a “federal front” for the Lok Sabha election.
Her post on a social networking site came on a day when not only differences within the leadership of the BJP come out in the open with veteran leader L.K. Advani resigning from the party’s three main bodies, but also questions are being asked about its impact on the future of the National Democratic Alliance which included some regional parties.
“I appeal to all the non-Congress, non-BJP regional parties to launch a united fight to free the country from misrule and anti-people decisions, and work together to build a better and brighter India,” Ms. Banerjee said. Ever since her party severed ties with the Congress in September 2012, Ms. Banerjee has been criticising the policies of the United Progressive Alliance government, which was “anti-people” and a “minority government”.
The Trinamool has been keeping a distance from the BJP even though its critics maintain otherwise.
“We do not want the Congress nor the BJP,” Ms. Banerjee had said after her party’s victory in the Howrah Lok Sabha by-election — which, her rivals say, was facilitated by the BJP’s last-minute withdrawal from the fray. Ruling out an “UPA III” after the general election, she has been giving hints for regional parties to come together even earlier.
