West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that her Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar and Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren along with other Opposition leaders will come together to fight the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, The Indian Express reported.
“I, Nitish Kumar, Hemant Soren and many others will come together in 2024,” Banerjee said at an event of the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata. “All opposition parties will join hands to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. All of us will be on one side and the BJP on the other.”
Her announcement came a day after Kumar ended his three-day visit to the national capital during which he met several leaders of the Opposition, including Rahul Gandhi and Sharad Pawar, in a bid to unite them against the BJP.
During Thursday’s event, Banerjee said that the BJP-led Central government will face defeat in the elections because of its arrogance and anger in citizens towards them.
“The BJP’s arrogance of 300 seats will be its nemesis,” Banerjee said, according to The Indian Express. “There will be ‘Khela Hobe’ in 2024.”
The slogan “Khela Hobe” or “the game is on” was used by the Trinamool Congress during the West Bengal Assembly elections in 2021. It was coined by youth Trinamool leader Debangshu Bhattacharyya, who had used it as a title of a rap-like video.
Banerjee also alleged that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is in India on abilateral visit, was not allowed to meet with her.
“This is the first time I saw that the PM of Bangladesh came and wanted to meet me but was not allowed,” the chief minister said, according to ANI. “I don’t know why they [the Centre] are so angry.”
She added that she skipped an invitation to the inauguration ceremony of the revamped Centra Vista Avenue, which would be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening.
The chief minister claimed that the invitation sent to her by the Centre was not proper.
“I got a letter yesterday from an undersecretary yesterday saying that PM will inaugurate the Netaji statue [in Centra Vista] at 7 pm and you must be there at 6 pm,” she said. “As if I am their servant. How can an undersecretary write to a chief minister?”
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