‘Beginning of the end’ for BJP, says Mamata

The Karnataka lectoral results are the “beginning of the end” for BJP, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee claimed on Saturday.

Banerjee also asserted the moral of the Karnataka assembly poll results is that people “want plurality” and that “no central design to dominate” can repress them.

Adding for good measure, she said that the poll results were a “lesson for tomorrow”, implying the 2024 Parliamentary polls.

Her party also took a swipe at BJP’s “double engine” rhetoric of the benefits of having the same party rule both at the centre and in the state, a claim TMC had to fight against during elections to Bengal’s assembly in 2021, and quipped that the people of Karnataka had rejected the “trouble engine” government.

Congratulating the people of Karnataka for their mandate in favour of change, Banerjee said that “brute authoritarian and majoritarian” politics has been vanquished.

She forecast that the safforn party would lose in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh too, where it faces off with the Congress, which steamrolled the BJP in Karnataka in results announced on Saturday.

“This is the beginning of the end of the BJP before 2024 Lok Sabha polls. People have voted against the arrogance and intolerance of the BJP, the TMC leader said.

Out of the 224 seats in the Karnataka assembly, Congress has won 133 seats and is leading in 3 others, while the BJP has so far won 64 seats and is leading in 1 seat, in results announced till 7.45 pm.

“I think the saffron party will also lose the upcoming elections in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh,” Banerjee told newspersons gathered in front of her house, after seeing off actor Salman Khan who had come to pay her a visit.

As late as March this year, the fiery TMC chief had said she would maintain equidistance from both the BJP and Congress only to change her stance somewhat after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as a Lok Sabha MP.

After a meeting with JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar last month, Banerjee had formally announced she would be part of a united opposition, including the Congress, which would challenge the BJP in 2024.

With inputs from News18

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