Mamata Banerjee speaks at the rally in Kolkata
At a mammoth rally in Kolkata today, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee once again issued a call that brought the CPM down in West Bengal in 2010. The call for 'parivartan' or change was for Delhi this time. And the real alternative at the Centre, she said, was her Trinamool Congress.
Distancing herself from both the BJP and Congress, Ms Banerjee called for a federal front and urged people to give her all 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
"In Bengal, we had said, enough is enough, we want 'parivartan'. We now also want parivartan in Delhi," was Mamata's opening salvo. Invoking Netaji, she also issued a call for 'Dilli Chalo' at a packed Brigade Parade Ground and, along the way, at least for now, she also discarded both the Congress and the BJP.
"BJP is not the alternative to Congress. Congress is not the alternative to BJP. Trinamool is the only alternative in the country today," she said.
Her favourite federal front came up briefly where she urged states to come together. "I don't want any office," she said. "I am happy to play a major role but stay in the background." But what she did not say, others did.
One of them was Imam Barkati, the Shahi Imam of the Tipu Sultan Mosque, who said, "Mamata should be PM, the whole country is saying."
Noted author Mahasweta Devi, who had fallen out with the West Bengal Chief Minister some months ago, also spoke for Ms Banerjee. "Mamata is the most probable, most suitable and only person fit to be the country's prime minister," she said, reading out of a written speech.
Ms Banerjee also promised was a bigger rally in Kolkata once Delhi had been won. "This rally is historic. After we build Delhi, we will have another rally. And there we will break our own record," she said, leaving no one in doubt that she clearly has set her sights on New Delhi now.
The opposition however was not impressed. While state Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya likened her "prime ministerial ambition to day dreaming", CPI-M leader Mohammad Salim accused her of neglecting the state.