West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday told NDTV's Prannoy Roy that the BJP is losing in Uttar Pradesh and would not even get 17 of the state's 80 seats.
"We are confident, BJP is losing. In UP, I can predict that they may not get even 17 seats. The Congress will get seven to eight seats, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav will do very well," the Chief Minister said, NDTV reported.
In 2014, the BJP had won 70 seats in UP and its ally Apna Dal had won two seats in the state, helping the party win an effortless majority in the Lok Sabha. This had happened for the first time in nearly three decades for any single party, the report said.
Mamata said that the cohesion between regional parties is still intact and that their talks for further plans were progressing. When asked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi labelling the opposition as "khichri", she said, "What's wrong with khichri? You can have rice, dal or potato curry also. It is put together in khichri".
She also accused Modi of lowering the level of political discourse, saying, "Don't speak his language. He must know that he is the PM and when he is talking, people are listening. Political speech is also about culture. I have been called a goon and whatnot. But I don't talk like that"
“What they are doing in Bengal it is more than emergency. They are running everything. All officers are under the Election Commission,” she said, calling him worse than fascist.
She also alleged that the BJP was running a parallel government and was spending a lot of money everywhere.
The BJP is aiming for 23 of West Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats. The parties have been sparring lately, with Mamata alleging on Monday that PM Modi had been horse trading and filing a complaint with the Election Commission.
(With inputs from NDTV.)
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