Setback for Congress as 2 top UP leaders join TMC; Mamata vows to give 'real fight' to BJP

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Lalitesh Pati Tripathi and Rajesh Pati Tripathi- two top leaders of Congress who recently quit the party and joined TMC in the presence of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Monday. Speaking to the media in Siliguri, they vowed to continue the struggle to oust BJP from power in UP as well as the Centre under the TMC supremo's leadership. On this occasion, Banerjee was quoted as saying by PTI, "The faith of people in the TMC is increasing. The joining of the two leaders testifies that we are now an all-India party which can give real fight to the BJP".

Elected to the Legislative Council in the path, Rajesh Pati Tripathi is the grandson of late Congress veteran Kamalapati Tripathi who served as the Chief Minister of UP from April 1971 to June 1973. His son Lalitesh Pati served as the Marihan MLA between 2012-2017 and was appointed as the UP Congress vice president in 2019. The young leader has suffered a setback in recent years though with his failure to retain the Marihan seat in the 2017 Assembly election and his loss to Union Minister Anupriya Patel in the 2019 General Election from Mirzapur.

TMC's growing pan-India footprint

After a hard-fought election campaign, TMC sprung a surprise by decisively winning the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election by bagging 213 seats whereas BJP could win in only 77 constituencies. Buoyed by its third consecutive victory, TMC is mulling projecting Mamata Banerjee as the Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Making her national ambitions clear, Banerjee propagated the West Bengal model of governance in her Martyrs' Day rally speech on July 21.

Thereafter, she visited Delhi and met various opposition leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi. In an attempt to expand its base across the country, TMC has increased its political activities in Tripura and Goa aimed at emerging as an alternative to Congress. However, the party has riled Congress in the process by inducting many of its leaders such as Sushmita Dev and Abhijit Mukherjee.

Incensed by the growing political capital of the Mamata Banerjee-led party, Congress recently accused TMC of indirectly helping BJP by dividing the secular votes. Slamming AAP and TMC in a press briefing on October 3, AICC Goa in-charge Dinesh Gundu Rao said, "There are two forces working. One force is the fascist force of BJP which wants to completely control this country, completely keep everything under its command. They are trying to create an authoritarian state using the power of money. The second thing that is happening in Goa, the parties which are operating here to ensure that BJP wins".