KOLKATA: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee used her last Martyrs’ Day rally before next year’s general elections as a launch pad for efforts to give firmer shape to the “Federal Front, which would boot the BJP out of office”.She also unveiled plans for a Brigade Parade Ground rally next January and invited the rest of the opposition to be part of the show of strength. Party insiders later said Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, too, might be invited for the rally to counter the growing perception that the Trinamool leader was eyeing an anti-BJP front minus the Congress.The Brigade rally would sound the “death knell of the Narendra Modi government”, Banerjee said, prompting Trinamool veterans to recall how the CM — then a feisty opposition leader in Bengal — had sounded the “death knell” of the Left Front regime at a Brigade rally in December 1992 (the Left Front was voted out of power in 2011). “Start working for the Brigade rally from November. Leaders of the Federal Front will come down to Kolkata on January 19 for Bengal to lead the country,” she said, shifting gears from regional to national.Banerjee’s address also recalled another much more recent rally, the one attended by PM Narendra Modi in Midnapore last week where a tent collapsed on BJP workers, as she used the “broken pandal” metaphor repeatedly to highlight how the BJP was trying to break up the country. “They cannot erect a proper pandal and they want to run the country,” she said.The Trinamool chief said some of her party’s seniormost leaders, including Subrata Bakshi, Partha Chatterjee and Subhendu Adhikary, would lead a Trinamool rally next Saturday at the same venue where the BJP had its “broken pandal” rally.“The BJP has looted bank deposits. It has looted small savings. Hundreds of men have been killed in fake encounters in Uttar Pradesh. Around 13,000 farmers across the country have committed suicide. The party has imported a new brand of Taliban communalism — Hindutva with swords and Hindutva with guns — that does not go with Bengal’s tolerant culture and the Constitution’s secular ethos. It is time to vote this force out of office,” she said.“We are living under a Hitler-like regime. Dangabaaz (rioters) are running the country. The PM has asked states to act against people involved in lynchings. But will he act against his own ministers who spread hatred and rumours?” she asked, accusing the BJP of trying to take the “Tripura route” in Bengal. “People from outside are entering districts as RSS pracharaks. They are giving money, motorbikes and cell phones to people. They did it to win a gram sabha in Alipurduar but it would not succeed for the whole of Bengal,” Banerjee said.Banerjee told the crowd that they could not afford to lose a single Lok Sabha seat in Bengal. “We will bag all 42 seats in Bengal. The BJP, at best, may get 150 seats,” she added, detailing the number of seats it would lose in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Chhattisgarh as well as Tamil Nadu.Her message of “inclusiveness” specifically mentioned blocs like the Kamatapuris and the Rajbangshis, sections among which the Trinamool did not perform according to expectations in the recent panchayat polls, as she asked party workers to focus on the poor, the Adivasis, minorities, Scheduled Castes and Tribes who, together, could influence results in 170 of Bengal’s 294 assembly segments.But her speech also made it clear that her party’s nascent plans to invite the Congress for the Brigade rally would not alter its electoral strategy in Bengal, where it would be going alone. “The Congress and the CPM here are helping the BJP, just like they have done during the panchayat polls, even as Congress leaders in Delhi are seeking our help against the BJP,” the Trinamool chief said.

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