Election wrap: Amit Shah on Congress' reaction post June 4, CPI(M)’s new generation of Lok Sabha candidates and more

Amit Shah

With less than five days before the seventh and the last phase of the 2024 parliamentary polls, leaders cutting across party lines are leading campaigns to bag the crucial votes on June 1.

The incidents leading to the buildup for the Lok Sabha 2024 election at Kolkata Uttar (North) Lok Sabha constituency in the West Bengal capital brought to the fore an alleged tussle within the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). A perceived thrust within the upper echelons of the party for replacing the elderly with young faces was being reported as a power struggle between the “old” and “new”.

Here, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and heir apparent, Abhishek Banerjee is seen as a leader ushering in new ideas and modern methods in the party, polls, and politics. He is currently the party national general secretary and two-time MP, running for a hattrick from the Diamond Harbour constituency.

The TMC chairperson herself tries to keep alive the relation she has shared with the veterans in her arduous political journey. She is known to have even condoned the errs and ills of some partymen when they came knocking on her door. The younger Banerjee is today perceived as a more resolute and intense leader.

When nothing seems to work, it might be time to change the workers. In West Bengal, this is what the CPI(M) has done: replace the weather-beaten and battle-scarred veterans with a bunch of young, new faces. Without the historical baggage of the CPI(M)'s disastrous last few years in government, when the party alienated its own support base, these youngsters, who made their name in student politics, are now leading the Left charge.

And, there is no place like Jadavpur for the Left to unveil its plans for resurgence. The Jadavpur University is an important centre of Left-leaning student politics, and the Left Front chose Students Federation of India leader Srijan Bhattacharya as the candidate for the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will lose his job after the Lok Sabha poll results are announced on June 4 but Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi will not be blamed for the defeat, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Monday.

Shah said Rahul Gandhi's people will also do a press conference post polls, saying they lost due to EVMs. "I have the details of the first five phases. In five phases of the Lok Sabha polls, PM Modi has crossed 310 seats. Rahul will not cross 40 and Akhilesh Yadav will not get even 4 seats on June 4," he said at an election rally.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday claimed that the INDIA bloc, if voted to power, would scrap the Agnipath scheme of recruitment in defence services and deposit Rs 8,500 to every woman's account in each month.

Addressing an election rally at Bakhtiyarpur in Bihar, he asserted that Narendra Modi will not be able to become the prime minister again, since there is a clear wave in favour of the INDIA bloc across the country. "When the INDIA block will form the government, the Agnipath scheme will be withdrawn," Gandhi said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi made all-out efforts to topple Himachal Pradesh's democratically-elected Congress government by using money power, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra alleged on Monday.

The Congress general secretary, who was campaigning in Chamba for the party's Kangra Lok Sabha seat candidate Anand Sharma, also said the Congress was in power for 55 years but could not become the richest party.The BJP, on the other hand, has become the richest party in the world in just 10 years, she claimed.

"Modi made all-out efforts to topple the democratically-elected Congress government in the state by indulging in corrupt practices and using money power," Priyanka Gandhi said during the rally.