As Trinamool Congress will be organising its last ‘Martyrs’ Day’ on Friday before the big battle for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, all focus will be on the message that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee might send to the Congress.
The question remains on whether she will completely rule out any negotiation with the country’s oldest national party for the Lok Sabha polls as she had been doing in the last couple of months or send a message of friendship or totally remain silent and refrain from taking Congress’ name in her speech.
Veteran political observers feel that all the three possibilities are relevant as the chief minister is well aware of what to say where and when and at the same time to remain silent where and when. “Be it her statement or silence on Friday … it will surely give an indication of where the Congress- Trinamool equations in West Bengal are heading to in the coming days,” said a city- based political observer.
The ‘Martyrs’ Day’ rally is happening at a crucial juncture when rumblings of discontent have been brewing among the state leadership of Congress over their national leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge sharing the dais with Mamata Banerjee at the recent meeting of the grand opposition alliance in Bengaluru.
The state leaders of the country’s oldest national party have raised questions on the justification of their national leaders sharing the dais with Mamata Banerjee at a time when their own party workers have faced onslaughts of the ruling Trinamool Congress activists in the recently concluded panchayat elections.
Amid this discontent, interest is also there that in case the Trinamool Congress supremo gives a message from the dais, will she give it only for the national leadership of Congress or also for the state leadership.
To recall, 13 people died in police firing on July 21, 1993 during a rally by West Bengal Youth Congress led by Mamata Banerjee, who was then the party’s youth wing president in the state. The rally was organised to demand that the voters’ identity card be the sole required document for voting. Since then the Martyrs’ Day programme is being organised every year on July 21 in memory of the 13 people killed.
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