‘Jhatka, kalesh’: BJP taunts Rahul Gandhi, Congress after TMC’s Bengal snub.

The Trinamool Congress has announced all of its 42 candidates from West Bengal for the Lok Sabha election 2024.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday taunted the Congress after Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress announced candidates for all 42 West Bengal Lok Sabha seats, saying wherever Rahul Gandhi has gone, the INDIA bloc died.“Today, yet another ‘Jhatka’ yet another ‘Kalesh’ in INDI alliance. Mamata Banerjee has unilaterally declared the seats and now Congress is looking here and there. Wherever Rahul Gandhi has gone, the INDI alliance took its last breath,” BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, according to ANI.He was referring to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra passing through West Bengal last month. Poonawalla also accused the Congress of being silent on the allegations raised by women in Sandeshkhali against Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan.The Sandeshkhali issue has become a major BJP versus Trinamool slugfest ahead of the Lok Sabha election. Trinamool’s Sheikh Shahjahan, accused of assaulting women in Sandeshkhali and grabbing their lands, was arrested by the West Bengal police.“Congress party tried to keep a strategic silence on Sandeshkhali. Priyanka Vadra and Rahul Gandhi said nothing about Sheikh Shahjahan, and Mallikarjun Kharge defended it,” Poonawala claimed.“Mamata Banerjee had asked the Congress to take two seats or else carry on as Congress won’t get even 40 seats across the country… This is the state of their alliance,” he added.Congress and TMC leaders have been engaged in a war of words in the recent past over seat-sharing in West Bengal, with the Mamata Banerjee-led party asserting that it cannot offer more than two seats. The Congress has two MPs from West Bengal.