Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for the BJP’s big win in West Bengal and Assam, saying they were “very good at holding elections”.
The BJP swept the West Bengal Assembly elections, winning 206 of the 294 seats, ending the 15-year rule of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. This is the first victory the party has recorded in Bengal since independence.
Tharoor praised the work put in by the BJP behind winning the elections and said that the party has “strong organizational strength” and that there is a lot to learn from them.
“They (Prime Minister Modi and HM Amit Shah) have done a good job in Bengal and Assam, partly because they are very good at conducting elections. They are professionally organised. They have strong organizational strength. They have put a lot of resources, including financial resources, into their campaign,” Tharoor told news agency ANI.
“There are things we can all learn from this. I just hope their message is to unite Indians and not divide them,” he added.
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In West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lost in Bhabanipur to the BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari.
“The Congress party must learn its lesson.”
While Tharoor praised the BJP, he also asked his own party, Congress, to do some “very serious introspection” after returning to power in Kerala by overturning Left rule in the state.
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The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) scored a huge win in Kerala in the assembly elections this year. While the Congress won 63 seats out of 140, its ally the Indian Muslim League won 22 seats, giving a comfortable victory to their alliance.
Reacting to the Congress’ victory in Kerala, Tharoor, a state MP, said the party needs to know what went right in Kerala and understand how it can be replicated elsewhere as well.
“I think the party is going to have to do some very serious analysis, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve said this before, and today we have a very good example of what worked right,” Tharoor said.
“If we can get it right in Kerala, what can we do to get it right elsewhere? This is a lesson the Congress party should learn,” he added.
The Assembly elections in Kerala were held in a single phase on 9 April and the results were declared on 4 May. While the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Indian Community Party (Marxist) failed to retain power in the state, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan won from the Dharmadam seat.
