They can't build a pandal, how can they build country?: Mamata's swipe at BJP

Claiming that the Trinamool Congress would win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the next general elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said that her party would oust the Bharatiya Janata Party to save the country.

She said the BJP's strength would drastically reduce in the next LS polls.

"We will win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. It is our pledge. We will oust the BJP to save the country. We will organise a big rally here in January and invite all the (opposition) leaders," she said at the TMC's annual Martyrs' Day rally in Kolkata.

The party presently has 34 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal.

Banerjee, who mooted the idea of a federal front to defeat the BJP, said, "We don't bother about the chair. We only bother about the people and the country."

Taking a dig at the saffron party for the collapse of a makeshift tent at PM Narendra Modi's rally at Midnapore, she said, "They cannot build a pandal. How can they build the country?".

The CM said the number of BJP's Lok Sabha seats would significantly come down in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

"During the no-confidence vote in the Lok Sabha yesterday, they (NDA) got 325 votes, but in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, their strength will come down to barely 100 seats," she said.

Every year the Trinamool Congress hold the Martyrs Day rally on July 21 to pay homage to 13 Youth Congress workers who allegedly killed in police firing 1993 during Left Front Government regime.  

Banerjee was a leader of the Youth Congress at that time.