Mamata Banerjee faces do-or-die battle in high-stakes West Bengal polls

News Network

March 10, 2021

Kolkata, Mar 10: A decade after she scripted history by defeating the longest-serving democratically elected communist regime of the world, feisty TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is once again on the threshold of a watershed moment as she faces a do-or-die battle in the Bengal assembly elections.

Stakes are high for the tempestuous TMC boss as losing the elections might put a question mark on the very existence of her "ideology-starved" party that has ruled the state since 2011, and winning it would place her in the league of leaders who have engineered the defeat of the formidable Narendra Modi-led BJP.

One of the fiercest critics of the Modi brigade, Banerjee is not just single-handedly taking on the well-oiled election machinery of the BJP, but also grappling with unprecedented rebellion and exodus from her party just ahead of the elections.

Desperate to shed the tag of a "sinking ship", the TMC has upped its game with the poll slogan 'Bangla Nijer Meyeke Chai' (Bengal wants its daughter), even as it continued to play the Bengali sub-nationalism card by branding BJP as a party of outsiders.

"This time, the fight seems tougher as we are up against the BJP, which is using money, muscle and the central machinery to seize power in Bengal. Both 2011 and 2016 assembly polls were comparatively less stressful," senior TMC leader and spokesperson Sougata Roy said.

Several Trinamool Congress leaders have their fingers crossed as they believe the party's "political existence will be at stake" if it loses the assembly polls.

Notwithstanding the odds stacked up against her, which includes allegations of corruption and appeasement politics, Banerjee, however, has asserted that her party will smoothly sail to victory, and has set a target of bagging 220 of the 294 seats.

Elections in Bengal, poised to be a stiff contest between the TMC and the BJP, will be held in eight phases, beginning with polling for 30 seats on March 27. Votes will be counted on May 2.

Born out of the womb of the Congress in 1998, the TMC, after two unsuccessful attempts in 2001 and 2006, came to power by defeating the mighty Left Front regime in 2011, riding the crest of massive public outrage against the communists.

Banerjee further tightened her grip on the levers of power in West Bengal in 2016, when she beat the communists hollow, winning 211 seats.

Things, however, went haywire during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP, milking its pro-NRC and CAA campaign, bagged 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Partition- scarred Bengal, just four less than the TMC.

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‘Israel’s sole objective is erasing entire Palestinian presence’

News Network

November 21,2024

Hamas says the Israeli regime’s sole objective lies in “erasing” the entirety of the Palestinian population from across the Palestinian territories.

Khalil al-Hayya, a ranking official with the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement, made the remarks to the Palestinian al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday.

“The occupation targets everyone—it strikes hospitals, civil defense, women, children, and the elderly,” he said, adding that the regime sought to “empty Gaza of its residents, and displace the Palestinian people to fulfill its dreams of building a Zionist Jewish state across all of Palestine.”

The remarks came amid the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the coastal sliver that has so far claimed the lives of nearly 44,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

“This unprecedented aggression in modern times evokes scenes from the dark ages of human history, having crossed all red lines and exceeded every expectation of brutality in the modern era,” the Palestinian official lamented.

He also regretted that the regime had added “systematic and dangerous starvation to its aggression, falsely claiming before the world that it allows 250 [aid] trucks into Gaza daily. In reality, the number of trucks is far fewer.”

Hayya, meanwhile, regretted that “scenes of children torn apart, women screaming over their children, and heart-wrenching destruction have failed to stir enough humanity to stop these crimes.”

He decried the United States for vetoing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions that are aimed at bringing about a potential ceasefire in the war, saying this indicated Washington’s “partnership in the aggression” and a simultaneous siege that the Israeli regime has been enforcing on Gaza.

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official asserted that, despite what the Israeli official is after, Hamas would not hand over the regime’s captives “without [the regime’s] stopping the war.”

He called Netanyahu “the main obstacle” in the way of cessation of the aggression, saying the Israeli premier “blocks any progress for political reasons,” and citing his preventing conclusion of a ceasefire agreement in July.

Hayya also warned that the regime sought to expand the war beyond Gaza, but asserted that its goals are “impossible and will never happen.”

“Today, the enemy exposes its true intentions of extermination and displacement, but it will fail,” he stressed.

“The Palestinian people are resilient and will not surrender, as they believe in their humanitarian and political cause. The enemy and its allies will not succeed in achieving their goals. This steadfast people will endure, and the occupation will not prevail against them.”

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