On Wednesday, the Trinamool Congress ridiculed the Congress for fielding 40% female candidates in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, expressing hope that the attempt to “emulate” the ruling party in West Bengal is not only “tokenism.”
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For the UP-Assembly polls, Congress national secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Tuesday that the party would offer 40% of the seats to women.“If they want to be taken seriously, they need to provide women 40% of seats in states other than Uttar Pradesh “In a series of tweets, it said.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party’s remark comes when both the Congress and the TMC are vying to lead the opposition against the BJP. Senior Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya responded to the statements by saying that the grand old party does not need lessons from the TMC on the political empowerment of women.
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The two parties’ relationship hit a new low earlier this month when the TMC poked fun at Rahul Gandhi’s defeat in Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, questioning whether the Congress would try to erase the loss through a Twitter trend. The TMC has been railing at the party for allegedly failing to fight back against the BJP. TMC outlet ‘Jago Bangla’ recently stated that Mamata Banerjee, the party’s supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister, has emerged as the opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rather than Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
