Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi allies congratulate ‘Bengal tigress’

The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies on Sunday congratulated TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and called her a “Bengal tigress” for taking on the BJP, and asked top leaders of the BJP to focus on the Covid situation in the country.

Shiv Sena chief and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that Banerjee had single-handedly fought for the “self-respect” of the Bengali people. “Her courage must be appreciated. The full credit for the victory goes to the Bengal tigress. From the Prime Minister to the Home Minister, the entire Union government, the state governments rallied to defeat Mamata Didi in West Bengal. Mamata Didi defeated all those forces and won. I heartily congratulate her and the courageous people of West Bengal,” he said.

“Now, if the politics is over, then all of us should unite and focus on the fight against Corona,” Thackeray added in an indirect dig at the BJP.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar also congratulated Banerjee for her “stupendous victory” and tweeted, “let us continue our work towards the welfare of people and tackling the pandemic collectively.”

NCP minister Nawab Malik said that during violence in West Bengal, Banerjee had asked for Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s resignation. “He (Shah) said I will resign only if people ask me to. In a democracy, election is a referendum and today it is against him. So when are you resigning Amit Shah?” asked Malik.

State Congress president Nana Patole said the defeat of the BJP in West Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu was a stamp on the failure of PM Narendra Modi and the Union government to deal with the Corona crisis. “To defeat a woman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his entire cabinet, BJP leaders across the country and all central government agencies were campaigning in West Bengal, leaving the people of the country in the lurch. Despite the massive misuse of power, money and central institutions, the people of Bengal have shown the place to the dictatorial tendency to defeat the BJP and attack Bengali society and culture,” said Patole.

BJP leader and Opposition Leader Devendra Fadnavis pointed out that his party had improved its performance in a big way in West Bengal, and said the state had now become Communist-Mukt and Congress-Mukt.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, in his weekly column in party mouthpiece Saamana, wrote that it was the talk that Amit Shah would turn his attention to Maharashtra after the Bengal elections and that Operation Lotus would be set in motion against the ruling MVA coalition. “All the attempts to topple the government in Maharashtra have failed and I don’t feel it will succeed in future as well,” wrote Raut.

Malik also said that the BJP said that after winning West Bengal, they would start Operation Lotus in Maharashtra. “They must keep this in mind that ‘those who lost the Battle of Plassey cannot dream of conquering the Sahyadris’,” said Malik.

Reiterating his statement during the Pandharpur bypoll, Fadnavis said, “I had appealed to people to elect our candidate and I will topple this state government at the right time. Even now, I am saying the same thing but only at the right time. Now, our battle is against Covid.”