Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday after it suffered another blow when MLA Madan Mitra joined the rebel camp on Wednesday. “Those who want to leave can go,” she said, adding that she had a message for the BJP.
She claimed that the party wished her to have a heart attack. “BJP wished me to have a heart attack. I will live to see your end,” Mamata said.
Mitra on Wednesday switched his allegiance from Mamata’s camp to the rebel faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee, saying he had “only changed my chamber in the Assembly”. He said he resigned from the TMC after his demand that the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee step down for six months was not accepted.
Read also | A day after ED summoned his wife and sons, TMC’s Madan Mitra left Mamata camp to join rebel faction, blames Abhishek
Mamata defends Abhishek
Reacting to his exit, Mamata said Mitra left because the ED summoned his wife and two sons on Tuesday, adding that Abhishek Banerjee had nothing to do with his decision.
Mamata said Abhishek had become an “excuse” for attacks on the party despite repeated summons on him and his family members and praised him for continuing the political battle instead of seeking “relief” through compromise.
“Abhishek Banerjee has turned into an excuse. His family members have been summoned. If he wanted, he could have gotten relief. But he did not run away from the battlefield. The way he continued to fight, all his shortcomings were forgiven,” the TMC chief said during a Facebook live on Wednesday.
Mamata criticizes the rebels: “Those who have joined the rebel camp are afraid of the police”
Criticizing the dissidents, Mamata said: “I apologize before the people on behalf of the traitors. I did not sell my conscience for political survival.”
The head of the TMC claimed that she and her family were subjected to constant political persecution because they refused to settle.
In clear criticism of the leaders who switched sides, she said: “If I had abdicated, we would not have faced so much torture. Those who abdicated have a lot of their own bags and luggage.”
Alleging that the BJP was using investigative agencies and police to engineer defections, Mamata alleged that many leaders crossed the border out of fear.
“We still have 18 MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. These parliamentarians who joined the ‘set-up company’ did so because they are afraid of the police,” she claimed.
Reacting to Mitra’s resignation from the party, TMC leader Subhandeep Chattopadhyay said, “…I am sad that he had to leave us and go. There was no need for him to resign. But they called in his son and wife. So, he must have lost his mental strength and had to resign.”
