Chief minister and Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee today urged the opposition parties to come under one umbrella to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Addressing a gathering at Shamsergunj In Murshidabad, she said, “I request all the opposition parties to come together and defeat the BJP.

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There will be a one-to-one fight in the 2024 election and the BJP will be defeated, she maintained. It may be recalled that leaders like Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, former chief minister of Karnataka HD Kumarswamy, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Tejaswai Yadav have held meetings with her on opposition unity in the recent past. She also met Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, leader of BJP during her visit to the neighbouring state, last month.

She said the BJP did not carry out any development and believes only in division. “They let loose one community against the other. They send enforcement agencies to harass the leaders of opposition parties,” she said, adding “do not insult Ram in this way.”

She maintained the BJP has ruined the country economically and no attempt has been made to bring down the prices of petrol, diesel, kerosene and essential commodities. Even in the past, Miss Banerjee had tried to bring all the opposition parties together, before the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

She held a meeting at Brigade Parade Ground with all the leaders in attendance. But the unity did not hold as she had envisaged. The chief minister visited the erosion-hit areas at Shamsergunj and distributed pattas among those, whose houses were been washed away.

Coming down heavily on the Centre, she said despite repeated requests it had not released funds to check erosion. She announced Rs 100 crore to prevent erosion in Shamsergunj. “I have made repeated requests to the Centre to release funds to stop erosion along the river.

But they did not respond and the state government has to spend money to prevent erosion.” She opened a 300-bed hospital in Amarpara in Shemsergunj. Thousands of people attended the meeting.