Former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday renewed her call for opposition unity, stating that an INDIA bloc meeting is likely to be held in Delhi to discuss Election Commission-related issues and chart out the opposition's next course of action.
KOLKATA — Former West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday renewed her call for opposition unity, stating that an INDIA bloc meeting is likely to be held in Delhi to discuss Election Commission-related issues and chart out the opposition's next course of action.
Addressing a rally at Serampore in Hooghly district, the Mamata All India Trinamool Congress chief said she sent a message to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, telling him that the opposition parties must sit together and coordinate their response to the controversy surrounding the functioning of the Election Commission and the SIR exercise.
"I sent a message to Rahul Gandhi, and told him that we must sit together. A meeting of the INDIA bloc will most likely be held in Delhi's Constitution Club on September 30," she added.
The proposed meeting is expected to focus on the EC, the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, amid nationwide protests against the poll panel and official.
Banerjee's outreach also has an added West Bengal dimension, with the TMC and CPI(M) -- bitter political adversaries for decades -- opening a channel of communication over the SIR controversy.
Sources said Banerjee and CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby spoke over the phone on Friday after exchanging letters on the issue. Baby had urged opposition parties to come together over concerns about the EC and the electoral process. Banerjee agreed that the situation warranted a coordinated response and urged that the INDIA bloc meet at the earliest.
Baby had also written to other opposition leaders seeking discussions on the poll panel.
Banerjee said parties should not allow ideological differences to come in the way when they are fighting over common public issues.
"There is no need to see who is red, who is blue or who is yellow," she said, stressing that she would look at the issue rather than the identity of the party raising it.
"Our struggle is for rights, freedom and dignity," Banerjee said, adding that she would stand with any movement concerning people's rights, regardless of which party initiated it.
The outreach to the Left comes after the TMC lost power in West Bengal to the BJP following 15 years of uninterrupted rule. Ironically, the TMC had come to power in the state in 2011 by ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front.
The INDIA bloc was formed in 2023 ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, bringing together parties with different ideological positions and competing regional interests. Its first meeting was held in Patna in June 2023, followed by a Bengaluru meeting in July, where the grouping was formally named.
The bloc has since faced differences over electoral strategies, seat-sharing and state-level equations. In West Bengal, the TMC and Congress contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections separately, while the CPI(M)-led Left Front also fought independently.
That history makes Banerjee's present appeal notable as she seeks a common institutional issue around which disparate opposition parties can coordinate.
She also questioned the arrest of Congress's Nandigram by-election candidate Milan Pradhan in cases linked to the 2007 Nandigram anti-land acquisition agitation.
The TMC's Mamata faction candidate withdrew from the contest after meeting West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, following which Banerjee extended her support to Pradhan.
Banerjee had earlier demanded action against Kumar and called for fresh assembly elections using rolls predating the SIR exercise.
The Election Commission has maintained that the revision exercise is intended to ensure the integrity and accuracy of electoral rolls, while differences within an institutional process are part of normal deliberations.