'Congress Has Failed, Mamata Banerjee Should Lead INDIA Bloc': Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee

Underscoring Mamata Banerjee's fighting spirit and her wide experience both at the Centre and state level, the Trinamool leader made a case for her as INDIA bloc leader.

Flush with the party's victory across six Assembly seats in the just concluded byelections and citing the Congress' poor electoral run, most recently in Maharashtra, Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee told NDTV that Mamata Banerjee should be accepted as leader of the Opposition INDIA bloc.

"For last three or four years what have they done? In the INDIA alliance, who is the leader? Nobody has been chosen as a leader, as a face of the opposition. Now it has to be done. The Congress has failed that is established. Congress leaders tried in Haryana, they failed. Maharashtra, they have failed. It is not that only Congress has lost, it is that we all, in INDIA alliance, who have lost. We reposed our faith in Congress but it could not achieve the result. Try to understand our point," Kalyan Banerjee, who is Trinamool's chief whip in the Lok Sabha, told NDTV.

The Congress won just 16 seats in Maharashtra against the BJP's 132, adding another chapter to its anthology of losses in recent times. Its senior leader Prithviraj Chavan, a former Chief Minister, and Balasaheb Thorat lost in Karad South and Sangamner seats, respectively. In October, the party was bested by the BJP in Haryana, a state it was widely tipped to sweep.