It is not going to be as easy for the BJP as it is being made out to be, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday in her first election rally in South 24-Parganas.
?Well before the polls are over, many people have started chanting ?Namo, Namo, Namo? as if the BJP?s win in the Lok Sabha polls was certain. But I am telling you that the game is not so easy. I am not willing to accept that the BJP is coming to power in Delhi,? she said in Diamond Harbour, the constituency from where her nephew Abhisekh Banerjee is the Trinamool candidate.
?I have been in politics for a long time and as far as I understand it, where are the numbers for the BJP? The BJP?s seats will not come from Bengal, not from Bihar, from Tamil Nadu, from Kerala or from Punjab. Where will it come from??
?I am not claiming that the Trinamool Congress will the number one party in the polls. But the Trinamool Congress will emerge as the third largest party and control Delhi?s politics,? the West Bengal chief minister said.
In what could be her first response to Anna Hazare?s charge that Mamata was good but her party was not, after the activist abruptly called off his joint rally at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi recently, Mamata said that she would not have grown to what she is if the Trinamool was bad or corrupt.
Without naming Hazare, Mamata said: ?Some people are saying that Mamata Banerjee is good but the Trinamool Congress party is not. The Trinamool Congress is my own creation. Had it become bad or corrupt then Mamata Banerjee would not have been there.?
She said there is always a miniscule percentage of bad elements in everything ? among journalists, among government officials, bureaucrats and also in political parties. ?I have seen many parties but I can tell you that you will not find a party like the Trinamool Congress. The bad elements are always weeded out in the Trinamool Congress,? she said and urged party members to keep the party?s image clean. ?The people are the ultimate judge,? she said.
In an indirect dig at the Delhi fiasco, Mamata said the Trinamool was not a ?slave? to anyone. ?We have not gone there to beg for anyone?s favour. The Trinamool Congress will not bow its head to anyone, not to any political party, come what may.?
She attacked the Congress, BJP and CPM and reminded the large gathering that her party was pitted against the ?syndicate? of Congress-BJP-CPM this elections. Giving a vote to Congress would be equal to giving a vote to the BJP or CPM, she said.
