2024 LS polls will not be for selection but for rejection: Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata: The 2024 Lok Sabha polls will not be an election to select a new government at the Centre but to reject the BJP, West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.

Speaking at a conclave here, the Chief Minister referred to the recent trend of "bulldozer politics," and said that the people of India will pay back the BJP in the same coin by bulldozing them out of power.

"The misuse of power by the BJP is bulldozing people and democracy. But in 2024, the people of India will bulldoze them out of power. The 2024 Lok Sabha polls will not be between BJP and the opposition, rather it will be BJP versus people of India. That is why I am saying that those polls will not be the election for selection but election for rejection of BJP," she said.

She also took a jibe at the BJP over the latter's frequent attacks against her for encouraging dynasty politics by promoting her nephew and Trinamool Congress' national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee. "Why is Abhishek targeted? Did not Sheikh Hasina take over the baton from her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman? Haven't people of Uttar Pradesh accepted Akhilesh Yadav after his father Mulayam Singh Yadav?" she questioned.

Banerjee alleged that it was something more than financial considerations that the BJP offered to the rebel Shiv Sena MLAs used for toppling the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government. "I will not spell out more details. It can be 'M' and it can be 'W'. Now it is for all to understand. I have all the information but I will not say anything more. At times silence speaks more. Everything will be revealed at some point of time or the other," she said.

She denied that there was violence in West Bengal after the 2021 assembly polls. "This is all propaganda by the BJP and its confidant media groups. Of the 21 people killed in violence, 16 of them were Trinamool Congress activists. Four of them were killed in BSF firing. Now all these have been included in the post-poll violence. The BJP's national president J.P. Nadda is responsible for spreading such lies."

Reacting to her allegations, BJP's spokesman in West Bengal Shamik Bhattacharya said that the chief minister is actually scared of the growing popularity of the BJP throughout the country. "That is why she says such things. The 2024 Lok Sabha polls will prove that the public support is with the BJP on a much larger scale," he said.