72 hours after Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee and her party were defeated in the Assembly elections, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav arrived in Kolkata to meet her on Thursday.
After reaching Mamata’s Kalighat residence, Akhilesh was greeted by TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee.
While shaking hands and hugging Abhishek who received the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief, Akhilesh told him that he had "fought very well".
The SP chief then proceeded towards the door where Mamata was waiting to greet him. While placing a shawl around the TMC supremo’s shoulders, Akhilesh reiterated that she "had not lost".
“No we have not lost," Mamata Banerjee said in response.
Abhishek joined the meeting focused on the election results—the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerging victorious gaining 207 seats while the TMC went down from 215 seats in 2021 to 80 seats.
Mamata has neither accepted defeat nor tendered her resignation to West Bengal Governor R.N. Ravi, stating that she might have lost as per the Election Commission (EC), but had won morally.
On May 7, the TMC government’s term came to an end, with the oath-taking ceremony for the new BJP government scheduled for May 9, which will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President Nitin Nabin attend the event at the Brigade Parade Ground.
Mamata has alleged the BJP took away 100 seats from the TMC, suggesting vote tampering. This resonates with Yadav's ‘vote chori’ claim as well.
The UP assembly elections are due to take place in April next year, for which the SP is looking to garner strength with all key Opposition leaders on their side, to take on the BJP, which is currently in power in UP.
“We have to stand up against malpractices in elections,” Yadav said, while alleging that the BJP had used the same tactics in Bengal as they had done in UP by transferring police officers and bringing the entire state machinery under their control before the elections to make others lose.
Akhilesh condemned the way Abhishek and Mamata were being treated while showing pictures of the alleged situation in UP, alleging that people were held at gunpoint to vote, questioning the heavy deployment of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF), and criticising the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) where people were targeted booth-wise to remove names from the voter list.
“Didi is going to revolt, she is not going to be disappointed,” Akhilesh went on to allege that the BJP could not deal with a lady moving ahead.
“We are with Didi in this fight because we have to save democracy and the Constitution. They will steal our right to vote. What democracy is left? No one has destroyed democracy the way BJP has. BJP can go to any limit to come into power, they can break laws,” added the SP chief, stating that leaders of the Opposition parties should be seen saving democracy together.
The SP chief also said that people would wake up after the election results.
Speaking on Uttar Pradesh, he also said that his party had made two mistakes of defeating BJP and Ayodhya, and hence they were being targeted. The BJP is currently in power in UP, having won 255 seats—while SP holds 111 seats—in the 403-seat assembly.