Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress chief and former Chief Minister of West Bengal, has set a 15-day deadline for MPs and MLAs who had left the party to return.
At a mega show of strength at north Dinajpur in North Bengal – a first since the assembly polls — Banerjee addressed the workers and the people on cellphone. “Many of the MLAs and MPs we helped get elected are traitors; there is no place for them here… We will return (to power). You are the true Trinamool.
In her message, she set a 15-day deadline for Trinamool MPs and MLAs who had left the party to return. As for the MLAs and MPs who left us – if they come back within 15 days, it is fine; otherwise, there will be no place for them here,” she said.
She took care to underscore that it was the ordinary grassroot-level workers, and not the leaders, who were the lifeblood of the party. “The INDIA Alliance cannot be strong without the Trinamool Congress. Therefore, if we are to fight the BJP, strengthen the Trinamool Congress-strengthen us,” she said.
She asserted that just as she had successfully founded the party in 1998, she could strengthen it once again. Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, which dismantled the 35-year-old Left citadel and then ruled Bengal for 15 years, started unravelling after the party’s resounding defeat in the assembly polls held earlier this year. a lion’s share of MPs – 20 of 28 — also broke away joined the regional Nationalist Citizens Party of India While a chunk of the MLAs joined rebel leader Ritabrata Banerjee and declared themselves the real Trinamool.
