Late Bal Thackeray would not have been happy, perhaps. Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamna' now says "keeping Congress out of national politics" would not be desirable.
New Delhi: At last, Rahul Gandhi and his politician and 'benevolent mother' Sonia Gandhi would heave a sigh of relief. Shiv Sena, under the stewardship of Bal Thackeray, pursued anti-Congress politics, has now come to defend the grand old party – whom Mamata Banerjee sought to write it off.
Within days of Mamata's "There is no UPA" shock treatment, Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamna' now says "keeping Congress out of national politics" would not be desirable. It would be a "most dangerous threat" to presume that Congress should be "wiped out", the edit of the widely read Marathi daily said.
Was all that only coalition compulsion or genuine concern for the beleaguered Congress party would remain to be seen.
The CPI-M, which celebrated its zero scores in West Bengal polls earlier this year, apparently realises the dangerous path it has undertaken by indirectly helping TMC.
Md Salim, a former MP and CPI-M leader, has tweeted taking a dig at the Trinamool Congress sitting MP Mahua Moitra and said it was "only a matter of time before she deletes (these) old tweets." The Marxist leader was referring to Ms Moitra's tweets earlier this year slamming the Adani Group of industries. Salim's messages on social media platforms on December 3 tried to 'ridicule' Ms Mahua Moitra for she had slammed industrialist Gautam Adani more than once, but now her party supremo and West Bengal
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is seeking investment from Adani into West Bengal. The West Bengal Chief Minister has invited Adani to attend the next edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit in Kolkata in April next year. TMC chief Ms Banerjee and industrialist Gautam Adani met in Kolkata on December 2, leaving both Mamata's friends and foes surprised.
CPI-M leader Md Salim also took a dig at Mamata Banerjee's party, tweeting that "Sooner or later, truth will prevail" on whether TMC (short form for Trinamool Congress) stood for 'The Modi Club'.
Interestingly, the first tweet dubbing TMC as 'The Modi Club' came from the official Twitter handle of Mumbai Congress on December 1.
Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala has already called Mamata Banerjee an opportunist.
TMC mouthpiece 'Jago Bangla' has said that the Congress lacks the 'zeal' to anchor opposition unity and has almost gone inside a 'deep freezer'.
Shiv Sena's somewhat sympathetic remarks for the Congress say while the Congress party's decline in the last ten years was "worrisome"; "but to not let it come back on track and take that space of Congress is also fatal".
