No trace of BJP will be found 'even through telescope' after 2019 Lok Sabha polls, says Mamata Banerjee

Howrah: Jubilant over the BJP’s drubbing in the recent bypolls in West Bengal and Rajasthan, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said the “farewell bell” had started ringing for the saffron party. “No trace of the saffron party will be found even through a telescope after the Lok Sabha election in 2019,” Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress (TMC) won a Lok Sabha and an Assembly seat in the by-election in West Bengal by convincing margins on Thursday, said at the party’s student-youth convention. [caption id=“attachment_4235731” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. PTI[/caption] “It is because of its failure in the recent bypolls that the ruling party at the Centre has placed the budget out of fear, panic and frustration…The farewell bell has started ringing for the BJP,” she said, claiming that the budget had failed to fulfil the people’s aspirations and dismissing it as “anti-people, a total bluff and a super flop show”. “I am disheartened with the Union Budget. This is a hopeless, negative, super flop and big bluff budget. I think this anti-people BJP government is not fit for governance,” the chief minister said. Hitting out at the opposition parties in the state, she said, “The CPM and the BJP have already entered into an understanding, while the Congress is still a friend of the Marxist party and has lost its own identity.” The CPM and Congress should take a lesson from the Uluberia Lok Sabha and Noapara Assembly bypoll results, the TMC supremo added. In both the seats, the BJP emerged as the second party, the CPM finished third and the Congress fourth. The Congress candidate lost his deposit in Noapara, a seat the party had won in the 2016 state Assembly polls. “Both the CPM and Congress are shameless even after their unprecedented defeat in the bypolls. The more they oppose the TMC, the deeper they will sink into the oblivion,” Banerjee said. Stating that a political party should appear before the electorate and have a friendly image with a lot of development activities behind it, she added that the TMC believed in amity and communal harmony, democracy and humanity. Hitting out at her former lieutenant Mukul Roy, who has joined the BJP, the TMC chief without naming him said, “One or two traitors were there in our party. Thanks to the almighty that they are not there now. My life is dedicated to the people and the TMC is working for their welfare.” Claiming that West Bengal was the number one state as far as rural economy, small scale industries and several other sectors were concerned, the chief minister called upon the people of the state to vote for the TMC again in the upcoming panchayat polls. She also asked the TMC workers to be friendly with the people in their areas and become assets of the party. “I give priority to my party workers over the leaders. The party workers are my invaluable assets,” Banerjee said.