Shiv Sena MP Blames Mamata Banerjee for West Bengal Election Defeat

Speaking to reporters here, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Tuesday said that outgoing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made a "big mistake" by not listening to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and holding talks with him regarding an alliance, otherwise the results of the assembly elections would have been different. The BJP won a decisive majority in the 294-member West Bengal assembly elections by winning 207 seats and ending the 15-year rule of the Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC). Mamata Banerjee suffered a defeat at the hands of BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in the prestigious Bhabanipur seat. Speaking to reporters here, Raut claimed that the BJP's victory in West Bengal is not a victory of democracy, as millions of voters'names were deleted through Special Intensive Revision (SIR). A Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson said that despite the defeat of key opposition leaders like Banerjee and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister एम.के Stalin in the assembly elections, the opposition alliance'INDIA'has a bright future. He said, "Whatever Gandhi had said in the Lok Sabha elections, the leader of the opposition (Indira Gandhi) also proved to be far-fetched."