BJP's "PM Aspirants" Dig At Arvind Kejriwal-Mamata Banerjee Meet

The BJP on Tuesday called the meeting between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Delhi counterpart and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in Kolkata as "political tourism" of Prime Ministerial aspirants ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The saffron party also asserted that the dreams of these "PM aspirants" would remain unfulfilled as the BJP will return to power for the third consecutive time next year under the leadership of Narendra Modi.

While the West Bengal Congress claimed that the AAP and TMC have the same goal of weakening the grand old party, the CP(M) asserted that the Mamata Banerjee-led party has never voted against bills brought by the BJP-led NDA government.

"The political tourism of several Prime Ministerial aspirants from the opposition camp has started ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. But this political tourism at the cost of public money will not yield any result, as there is no vacancy for the Prime Minister's post in 2024," BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh said.

BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said the meeting between the two senior leaders to forge unity is a "futile exercise" as efforts to form such an alliance in 2014 and 2019 had failed.

"The people of this country would never vote for an unstable and opportunistic alliance over a stable government offered by the BJP," Mr Majumdar said.

Reacting to the AAP-TMC leadership meeting, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, "The AAP and the TMC follow the same policy of trying to weaken the Congress and increase their strength, thus helping the BJP.

The electoral battle of the two parties in Goa, Gujarat, Mizoram and Tripura only helped the BJP, claimed Chowdhury, the leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha.

CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty alleged that the TMC has avoided voting against bills brought by the Modi government.

Questioning the TMC supremo's "credibility" in this regard, Sujan Chakraborty said that it will have to be seen whether she will stand by what she is saying concerning the Kejriwal government in Delhi.

As part of a nationwide tour to garner support for his fight against the Central ordinance to control appointments and transfer of bureaucrats in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, along with his party's CM for Punjab Bhagwant Mann, met Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata on Tuesday.

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