BJP leader Mukul Roy on Sunday described Trinamool Congress (TMC) president Mamata Banerjee's offer to quit as the West Bengal chief minister following her party's drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls as nothing but a drama to stay in the news.
Banerjee would never step down from the chief minister's post as she was more keen on relishing the powers of the chair, he said.
"Mamata Banerjee offering to quit is nothing but a drama. She said all these only to stay in the news headlines. To whom did she submit her resignation? She herself is the party (TMC). Has anybody seen her resignation papers?
"I think she submitted the resignation to herself and then rejected it on her own," the BJP leader mocked while speaking to reporters here.
"She (Banerjee) is more keen on relishing the powers of chief minister and will never resign unless the people of West Bengal use their democratic rights to throw her out," Roy, who was Banerjee's right-hand man before joining the BJP, said.
The TMC supremo had Saturday said she had offered to quit as the West Bengal chief minister at the party's internal meeting in view of its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls at the hands of the BJP, but her offer was rejected by the party.
Reacting to Banerjee's statement that she would continue to attend Iftar parties without caring for the appeasement jibes as she was "ready to be kicked by the cow that gives milk", Roy said the TMC chief should come clean on whether she was calling the Muslim community "cow".
"I will also like to request the people of the Muslim community to think on this," he said.
On Banerjee's reiteration that she would never allow implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in West Bengal, the BJP leader claimed that she had no idea about it or the Citizenship Amendment Act.
"In the country, first the Citizenship Amendment Act will be implemented and then the NRC will come into place," he said.
Keeping up his attack on the TMC, Roy said the party would soon be relegated to "history" as it was born only to oppose the CPI(M) in West Bengal and had no philosophy or idea about the country's economy or industry.
"Only history books will mention that there was a party called the TMC. The process of the TMC going into extinction has already started," he said, alleging that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had helped the party improve its vote share in the Lok Sabha polls.
Roy also rubbished reports that BJP activists were forcibly occupying TMC party offices after the poll results and handing those over to the Left parties.
Asked to comment on the claims made by several BJP leaders that the Assembly polls in West Bengal would be held in another six months, Roy declined, saying it depended on the will and wisdom of the people.
West Bengal witnessed a saffron surge as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 18 of its 42 Lok Sabha seats, up from only two in the 2014 parliamentary polls. The TMC won 22 seats, down from 34 in 2014.
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