‘Consider me your candidate in all 294 seats’: Mamata Banerjee’s pitch in Bengal battle | India News
New Delhi: “Consider me as your candidate in all 294 seats,” Mamata Banerjee A campaign rally on Tuesday urged voters to look beyond independent candidates and rally behind his leadership.When Mamata Banerjee took the stage at Chandrakona in West Midnapore, her message cut through the campaign noise with a clear pitch: leadership over labels. In poll-bound West Bengal, where assembly elections are scheduled in two phases on April 23 and April 29, Trinamool Congress The supremo has positioned himself as the face of the contest across all constituencies.He expressed confidence a day after his strongest rival in the state, BJP leader Subvendu Adhikari, filed his nomination from Bhavanipur, contested by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and from Nandigram, where he defeated her in the 2021 polls.At the rally, Banerjee also flagged what she described as irregularities in the voter list, citing input from her nephew and party leader Abhishek Banerjee. “I was told by Abhishek (Banerjee) yesterday that he had to rush to the EC office in Kolkata in the middle of the campaign schedule after receiving information that around 30,000 forms were submitted in a day to include new voters,” said the TMC supremo.Stepping up his attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, he accused it of trying to rig the voter list by bringing in voters from other states. “BJP is trying to include illegal voters from Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the voters list of Bengal. They are planning to transport outside voters through railways like in Bihar,” he claimed.Chief Minister Mamata also alleged that BJP is working in connivance Election Commission of IndiaAlleged deletion of targets from voter list. “BJP and EC are taking away people’s citizenship, constitutional and democratic rights. We will fight them every inch of the way,” he said.Sharpening the political contrast, he warned of cultural and policy impositions should the BJP come to power in the state. The party has “no respect” for Bengal, he claimed, adding that it would impose a “ban on food intake” and try to introduce national registration of citizens through the back door, with plans to send targeted citizens to detention camps.Through high-level rhetoric and direct appeals to voters, Mamata’s pitch in West Midnapore underscored a campaign that is as much about personality as it is about party.
