CM Mamata urges Opposition to unite against BJP for 2024 polls

Fresh from a landslide victory in the Assembly elections, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged the Opposition to prepare for a “united” fight against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Pointing out that the BJP wants to make the country a “surveillance state”, she said: “We have to start planning now.”

The CM was addressing people virtually on Martyrs’ Day, the biggest annual event organised by her party, the Trinamool Congress, to commemorate 13 deaths in a police firing during a Youth Congress rally in 1993.

The event was live-streamed on giant screens in several parts of the nation.

Several leaders from Opposition parties were present for the screening in Delhi — from the Congress, the NCP, and the AAP, among others.

Banerjee thanked them and said she would be in Delhi for a few days. “I would like to meet all important Opposition leaders,” she said. 

Much of Banerjee’s speech focused around the Pegasus spyware controversy. Banerjee said that she could not speak freely with other Opposition leaders because her phone was tapped and she had “plastered the camera” on her phone.

“We should plaster the Centre, otherwise the country will be destroyed. They want to make it a surveillance state,” she said. 

There are three pillars in a democracy and Pegasus captured all three, Banerjee said.

She urged Opposition leaders for a gathbandhan for 2024. “Khela” will happen in all states till the BJP is removed from the country, she said.