Certainly said voting for TMC or BJP is same: Adhir on viral video clip

Murshidabad (West Bengal) [India], May 3 : West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who got into a massive row over his "Better to vote for BJP..." video snippet, clarified on Friday that he has been saying repetitively that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is the same in the state and hence voting for either of them will yield the same result.
"You all know what steps were taken in this world to hide the truth. What I said in my speech is not stolen from somewhere but is on record. There are videos of my speech. Please see the video...I have certainly said and I am saying every day that BJP is the same as Trinamool in Bengal. The elections here are being contested by the alliance between BJP and Mamata. So voting for TMC or the BJP is the same," Chowdhury said speaking at a press conference in Murshidabad.
Chowdhury said that while the Congress and the Left parties are the secular forces in the state in this election, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is bent on weakening the alliance.
"The Congress and the Left are fighting for secularism and democracy in Bengal. To help PM Modi, Didi (Banerjee) has broken off from the INDIA bloc and is trying to weaken the secular forces," the senior Congress leader said.
Hitting back at the TMC supremo over his often repeated remark that voting for the Congress and Left is the same as voting in favour of the BJP, Chowdhury questioned the double standards in TMC's claim about the viral video.
"Doesn't Mamata Banerjee say that voting for the Congress and the Left is the same as voting for the BJP? Does Didi speak the truth all the time? Nothing will be gained in releasing snippets of a video," Chowdhury said.
"For sure, I have said that voting for the TMC is the same as strengthening the hold of the BJP," he added.
"The TMC is campaigning among Muslims saying that you have voted for dada (Adhir Choudhury) throughout the time, now is the time to vote for bhai (Yusuf Pathan). Thus TMC is going to Hindus and saying that Pathan is losing and so vote for the BJP. TMC has only one goal, which is to defeat Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury," Chowdhury, the Congress Berhampore candidate who has been winning the seat since 1999, said.
Hitting out at the West Bengal Chief Minister over her partnership with the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Chowdhury said, "Didi (Banerjee) has surrendered before PM Modi. She has helped PM Modi in Bengal. The TMC was earlier a partner with the BJP. She was earlier a Minister of the BJP government. She was called Devi Durga by Mohan Bhagwat. She had earlier called RSS a partiotic organization."
Though still a part of the Opposition bloc--INDIA, the TMC chose to go it alone in Bengal and announced candidates for all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state from a show of strength at Brigade Parade Grounds of Kolkata earlier.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC took the lion's share of the electoral spoils in the state, at 34, while the BJP had to be content with just 2 seats. The CPI(M) and the Congress won 2 and 4 seats, respectively.
However, in a poll stunner that few saw coming, the BJP turned the tables on the ruling TMC in the 2019 polls, winning 18 seats. The ruling party in the state saw its tally reduced to 22. The Congress fared a lowly third in the tally with just 2 seats while the Left Front was down to just a lone seat.