Updated: December 15, 2020 8:21:49 pm
Suvendu Adhikari. (Archive)
Amid speculation about his next political move, disgruntled Trinamool Congress leader Suvendu Adhikari appeared to approach the BJP on Tuesday while criticizing the TMC on the internal-external debate and said that those coming from other states cannot be branded. of outsiders.
Adhikari, who had resigned from the state cabinet and had been distancing himself from the party for the past few months, said that he is first Indian and then Bengali.
He also criticized the TMC leadership, saying that it is giving more importance to the party than to the people.
Adhikari addressed the celebrations of the birth anniversary of the freedom fighter Satish Chandra Samanta in Haldia in the district of Purba Medinipur.
Referring to the internal-external debate triggered by TMC’s leadership to counter the BJP in upcoming assembly polls, Adhikari said that Bengal is a very important part of India and “people who come from other states cannot be treated like outsiders. ” The ruling party in West Bengal has often criticized the BJP for sending its leaders from other states to prepare for the Assembly elections.
“For us, we are first Indians and then Bengali. Satish Chandra Samanta was a staunch MP from Medinipur. Even the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, used to respect him very much. Neither Satish Chandra Samanta called Nehru an outsider nor Nehru called him a non-Hindi-speaking MP. There was mutual respect, ”he said, echoing the saffron party’s views on the inside and outside debate.
Samanta had dropped out of Bengal Engineering College as a student to participate in the fight for freedom. His leadership qualities came to light during the formation of a parallel government called Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar (National Government of Tamrlipta) in Tamluk during the Quit India Movement. After independence, Samanta was a member of Parliament for more than three decades. Attacking TMC leaders, Adhikari said: “Why should there be a government ‘by the party, by the party of the party’ in Bengal? This is democracy. We need to restore the rules according to the Constitution of India, which says “by the people, by the people and for the people”… I am not greedy for positions. All my life I have worked for the masses ”.
An influential leader with a massive base, Adhikari said that those who try to smear him will get an adequate response in the 2021 assembly polls.
“There are few people who try to smear me by saying that I had longed for positions. I want to tell you that you will get an adequate response in the next assembly elections, ”he said without naming anyone.
Speaking about the movement against the acquisition of agricultural land in Nandigram in 2007, Adhikari, one of the prominent faces of the uproar, said that it was a popular movement and that “no political party or individual should try to take advantage of it.”
The Nandigram movement had added to Mamata Banerjee’s political clout and helped her party seize power from the Left Front. The Nandigram MLA, which had been distancing itself from the party for the past months, runs programs without the TMC banner. In the past two months, posters with ‘Dadar Anugami’ (Dada followers) written were seen in various parts of the Purba Medinipur district.
Reconciliation efforts by veteran TMC leaders like Saugata Roy and Sudip Bandopadhyay have failed to placate Adhikari, who has yet to reveal his future political direction, amid speculation about joining the BJP.
Adhikari, an influential mass-based leader who had resigned from Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet and other positions he held a few days ago, has maintained that he “has trouble working with the party.”
He himself, a two-term former MP, Adhikari’s father, Sisir Adhikari, and his brother Dibyendu are TMC MPs from the Tamluk and Kanthi Lok Sabha constituencies respectively.
The influential in-laws omitted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s rally in her West Medinipur district, a bulwark of last week, leading her to accuse the BJP of trying to bankrupt her party using “money bags.”
The Adhikari family wields considerable influence in at least 40-45 assembly segments in West Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram, parts of Birbhum, mainly in the Junglemahal region and areas in the minority-dominated Murshidabad district.
Their defection may negatively affect the TMC’s prospects in these areas in the next assembly elections.
.
