Both BJP, Trinamool Practise Vote Bank Politics, Says Congress's Adhir Chowdhury
NDTV
Answering a question, West Bengal PCC President Adhir Chowdhury said Congress and the Left Front are contesting most of the seats separately and put the onus of absence of pre-poll alliance on the Left.
West Bengal PCC President Adhir Chowdhury on Friday called Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi "two sides of the same coin" and accused both ruling Trinamool Congress and the opposition BJP of doing religion-based politics to get votes in the polls, whether for the Lok Sabha or local bodies.
Mr Chowdhury, who was releasing the Congress manifesto for the December 19 Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) polls, told reporters in Kolkata that while BJP embarks on a shrill Hindutva campaign before general elections or local body polls, while TMC counters it by treating Muslims and Hindus as separate votebanks.
"This competitive religion-based politics is creating problems for secular and progressive parties like us (Congress). We have to make people realise that Didi (Mamata Banerjee) and PM Modi (Narendra Modi) are two sides of the same coin. They had pursued this dangerous brand of politics of division in the West Bengal assembly poll in which BJP had a serious setback.
"But BJP seems to be repeating the same agenda again - weaving the Hindutva narrative in the civic polls and TMC is busy with catering to different religious groups as it does not want to talk about development but in creating division," he said.
