Akhilesh, Tejaswi lend support to Mamata in Bengal
The Young Turks of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar politics on 1st March threw their weight behind West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav lent their support to the Trinamool Congress. Akhilesh held a news conference on his home turf while Tejashwi, who came within striking distance of power and gave the BJP alliance a scare in the Bihar elections met the Bengal chief minister at her office at Nabanna on Monday evening. The expression of solidarity is fuelling hope in the Trinamool Congress that the Hindi-speaking voters of Bengal would favor the ruling party at the hustings. The back-to-back endorsement from the heartland is also expected to help Trinamool drive home the message that it is not against those with roots outside the state but its “outsider” label is aimed solely at those parachuting into the state to divide and polarise the people. Both young leaders virtually echoed each other while delivering their messages aimed at a large number of people from the two states who live in Bengal. Some estimates say voters in Bengal from the two states total at least 4.5 million. The voters from both states are being assiduously wooed by the BJP. Tejashwi urged the voters against getting swayed by the BJP`s “double engine sarkar” pitch — a suggestion that having the same party in control of the Centre and the state government would expedite development in the state. He asked the people to learn from the example of his home state. Mamata lauded Tejashwi, asserting that he had actually won the Assembly polls in Bihar but was deprived of victory by the trickery of the BJP. She also said she was certain that sooner or later he would come to power in the state. Hailing Lalu Prasad as a father figure, Mamata wished him long life for the sake of democracy.