West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the Congress had performed poorly in Tripura Assembly elections as they did not ally with the Trinamool Congress, IANS reported. The Congress, which had won 10 of Tripura’s constituencies in the 2013 elections, could not win any this time.
“I requested the Congress for a coalition [in Tripura],” Banerjee said. “I told Rahul Gandhi that we are new as a party in Tripura. So let’s unite the Congress and Trinamool Congress and the hill parties to fight the election together. But they did not listen to me.”
She said since the Congress did not accept her offer, the party had managed to only secure 1.8% votes in the elections, the results to which were announced on Saturday. The Trinamool Congress chief said she had proposed that her party contest from 14 seats, while the hill parties could fight for 16 seats. She said she had offered the Congress 20 seats.
“If such a platform could be formed, getting 15% to 20% vote share would have been easy. But the Congress did nothing. They supplied oxygen to the BJP,” she said.
However, the West Bengal chief minister termed BJP’s victory as “insignificant” in the 2019 general elections. “Tripura is a small place with 25 lakh people. A small district like Howrah in West Bengal has more than 38 lakh voters. So there is no point getting overenthusiastic about this victory...I am still of the opinion that BJP will face devastation in 2019 [Loksabha elections],” she said.
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