BJP's Mukul Roy mocks Mamata for reaching out to Cong, CPI(M)

Senior BJP leader Mukul Roy mocked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday for reaching out to opposition CPI(M) and Congress to join her fight against the saffron party and said it proved that she had already conceded defeat. Banerjee, he claimed, was afraid of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) growth in the state.

Once a close confidant of Banerjee and the number two person in her Trinamool Congress (TMC), Roy switched over to the BJP in 2017, following differences with the party supremo. "She (Banerjee) has already conceded defeat. Her appeal to the CPI(M) and the Congress to join her fight against the saffron camp proves it. Mamata Banerjee is afraid of the BJP's growth in the state and that is why she has called for an alliance with the Congress and the CPI(M)," he said.

Banerjee reached out to the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from the floor of the state Assembly on Wednesday to join her fight against the BJP, but the two parties rejected her appeal, saying it was her policies that were responsible for the saffron party's growth in Bengal. "She has actually accepted that she cannot fight against the BJP alone. I can vouch that even if she forges an alliance with the Congress and the CPI(M), she will lose the polls. The people of Bengal have made up their minds to defeat her," Roy said.

Banerjee's appeal came in the backdrop of unprecedented growth of the BJP in Bengal, where it won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the recently concluded polls. The TMC's tally, on the other hand, came down to 22 from 34 in 2014.