Kolkata: Even as BJP chief Amit Shah is confident that his party will win 23 seats in West Bengal in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool Congress is confident of a sweeping victory on its home turf.
Dubbing the BJP chief Amit Shah’s claim to win 23 seats in West Bengal as day dreaming, TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee has said the party is ‘away from the reality’.
“If he is claiming that BJP is going to win 23 seats in West Bengal, then I think he is far away from the ground reality. He is day dreaming,” said Banerjee.
The reaction comes a day after BJP chief Amit Shah claimed that the BJP would improve its tally in Odisha and northeast and would win 23 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal. Shah said this in a freewheeling with CNN News18’s group editor Rahul Joshi.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had managed to win two seats in West Bengal.
“Amit Shah knows it well that it is difficult to get a single seat in Bengal. We will get all 42 seats. The TMC will win as Mamata has done good work for the people of Bengal. The BJP won’t even get three seats,” said TMC leader Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.
Meanwhile, taking a swipe at the BJP and TMC, the CPI(M)’s Faud Halim said that the two parties are the ‘two sides of a same coin’.
“Mamata and TMC are helping Modi and Amit Shah in their aspirations. Many candidates of the TMC have switched over to the BJP. There is an overt understanding between both parties,” said Halim.
However, with its ‘Look East’ policy, the BJP is confident of improving its tally in West Bengal and forming a government in Odisha, to which the TMC and Left disagree.
“In the last election, in Eastern side they got 21 of 191 seats. This is a dream they are portraying,” said TMC’s Chattopadhyay.