After Congress' Big Karnataka Win, Trinamool's 'Trouble Engine' Dig At BJP

Taking a swipe at the BJP's "double engine" rhetoric over its defeat in the Karnataka polls, the Trinamool Congress on Saturday said the people of the southern state rejected the "trouble engine" government and asserted that the brute authoritarian and majoritarian politics were vanquished.

The ruling party of West Bengal, however, came out with a guarded response regarding the Congress's victory saying the people decided to reject the BJP.

TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the Karnataka poll results are a "lesson for tomorrow", in an apparent reference to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress crossed the 113-seat mark in the election, the majority required to form the government, in the 224-member Assembly for which counting of votes took place on Saturday. According to the Election Commission website, the party was leading or winning in 136 seats.

"My salutations to the people of Karnataka for their decisive mandate in favour of change!! Brute authoritarian and majoritarian politics are vanquished!! When people want plurality and democratic forces to win, no central design to dominate can repress their spontaneity: that is the moral of the story, a lesson for tomorrow," Banerjee tweeted.

She had last week appealed to the electorate of Karnataka not to vote in favour of the BJP and hoped that the downfall of the saffron camp would begin from the southern state ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

Former Karnataka chief minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy in March came to Kolkata to meet Banerjee at her residence and requested the TMC boss to campaign in the upcoming Karnataka assembly polls. She, however, didn't visit the southern state.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, considered number two in the party, said the people rejected the "trouble-engine" government of the saffron camp.

"It is a victory for the people of that state. It is the defeat of the BJP top brass," he said.

When asked about the Congress's performance in the polls, he said the people of Karnataka chose the "most viable" alternative to the BJP.

"We have been saying for a long time that a one-to-one fight formula is needed to defeat the BJP. In Karnataka, the people defeated the party, putting up a fight against the BJP. In West Bengal, the TMC is the only force fighting against the BJP," he said.

The TMC MP also declined to attach Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra to the Congress's victory, saying there can be many factors including the party having a new president.

TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh tweeted, "What Bengal thought in 2021, Karnataka thinks that today, India will think tomorrow," The TMC came to power in West Bengal for the third time in a row in a landslide victory in 2021, defeating the BJP.

Later, while speaking to reporters, Ghosh said the Congress might have won in Karnataka, but its role in Bengal is under question "as it is aligned with the Left to oppose the TMC and, in turn, help the BJP,".

The Trinamool Congress, in March, had announced equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP and had claimed that the saffron camp is trying to make a hero out of Rahul Gandhi to divert attention from the burning issues.

"Victory and defeat are part of elections. The TMC has nothing to celebrate about it. Rather it should worry about its leaders who are on their way to jail," BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said, referring to the corruption cases against a number of functionaries of the ruling party.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)