'Dangerous trend', 'power-hungry': Mamata Banerjee's TMC on Maharashtra developments

Kolkata: Terming the political developments in Maharashtra as “ominous signs for a democracy”, the TMC on Thursday stated that "people's mandate was insulted” in the western state as the BJP resorted to “horse-trading” to bring down a democratically elected government. Shiv Sena rebel leader Eknath Shinde has taken over as the new chief minister of Maharashtra after raising a banner of revolt against his party that brought down the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was appointed as the deputy CM on Thursday evening.

"What happened in Maharashtra is an ominous sign for a democracy. A democratically elected government was toppled through undemocratic means... This is a dangerous trend. The politics of horse-trading, financed by the BJP, was at play. The BJP's agenda is to capture power by hook or by crook," TMC chief spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Ray said.

Ray claimed a lot of money was spent to bring down the state government in Maharashtra. "They either want to disturb or topple every opposition-led government in the country. If someone doesn't agree to switch sides, they will use CBI and ED to threaten them. This is a worrying trend that a party in power at the Centre is purchasing MLAs and destabilising state governments. This trend has started after the BJP came to power in 2014."

Echoing him, TMC leader Sougata Roy said the BJP had been "making plans to oust the MVA government for quite some time".

"Since 2019, when the BJP failed to form government in Maharashtra, the party had been making plans to topple the MVA government. The way MLAs were flown to BJP-ruled Gujarat and Assam indicates that the BJP and the rebel leaders had everything well-planned," Roy said.

The saffron party, however, rubbished the allegations as baseless and said the rebellion by the Shiv Sena MLAs was an internal matter of the party.

"The BJP has nothing to do with political turmoil in Maharashtra. And the TMC and its leaders should not lecture us about ethics in politics. All of us are well aware of how the TMC poached opposition MLAs since 2011," party spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya added.