BJP’s claims of rise in vote share in Bengal desperate attempt to put lid on electoral reverses: TMC

By PTI

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Sunday made light of BJP’s claims about rise in vote share in West Bengal, contending that it was a desperate bid to ignore the electoral reverses in the state and keep a check on the “quick disintegration” of the party following poll results.

Senior TMC MP Sougata Roy was reacting to comments made by BJP president J P Nadda at the national executive in New Delhi, where he underlined the party’s performance in West Bengal assembly polls and the substantial growth in vote share compared to the 2016 assembly polls, and 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Nadda also said there are very few parallels in Indian politics to BJP’s growth in Bengal.

“If you look at the whitewash of the BJP in the last two phases of by-elections, you will realise from 38 per cent during the last assembly polls, their vote share has come down to 9-10 per cent,” Roy told reporters in Kolkata.

Asserting that such claims by the saffron party were a “desperate attempt” to deflect attention from the poll drubbing, the TMC MP from Dumdum said, “BJP is disintegrating in Bengal and the central leadership is aware of the situation.”

The BJP is trying to boost the morale of its workers in West Bengal through such statements, but the “efforts will go in vain”, he added.

The saffron party has faced defeat in the recent bypolls in the state and in the assembly elections held earlier this year.

Nadda also took a strong note of alleged political violence against BJP workers in TMC-ruled West Bengal.

“I want to make it clear through the party’s national executive that we are not going to sit quietly. We will fight a decisive battle for the party workers democratically in Bengal and lotus will bloom in the state,” the BJP chief said.

Countering the charge, Roy said the BJP is labeling every stray incident and local dispute as post-poll violence and blaming the TMC.

“The judiciary and different central agencies are probing the alleged incidents (of political violence). Has TMC’s involvement been proved yet”?” he said.