The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday congratulated Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress for winning the West Bengal assembly election for the third successive term and assured that the saffron party will work as a constructive opposition.
The BJP will cooperate with the government in all its pro-people activities, the party's state vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar said.
"We will play the role of an active, responsible opposition party in West Bengal," he said.
"Trinamool Congress is going to form the government for the third successive time and BJP congratulates Mamata Banerjee for that," he told reporters after clear trends on TMC's huge victory emerged.
The BJP had fought the assembly election in West Bengal with all its might, he said.
"We have reached a milestone by achieving the position of the opposition party in the assembly".
The BJP will be with the state government, the Centre and the people in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the biggest challenge at present, he said.
The 'limitations' that the BJP suffered in reaching out to the people in convincing them will be corrected by the party and it will analyse the reasons for the defeat, Majumdar said.
He claimed that the election has ensured that the alliance comprising the Left Front, Congress and the newly-formed Indian Secular Front has become extinct.
"We have seen the extinction of the Left Front and the Congress in the state," the BJP leader said.
"There were talks of polarisation, but the elections have ensured that the TMC and BJP will be the two parties which will be with the people in West Bengal's politics," he said.
The BJP had gone to the people with the issue of the state's development, while TMC had put forward the issue of Bengal's pride and raked up the outsider issue.
"Possibly a little more percentage of people of the state believed in what the TMC said than what we offered ... We accept the verdict of the people of the state," the BJP leader said.
Majumdar said that the saffron party feels that the shift of the Samyukta Morcha's vote en masse to TMC instead of to the BJP has been a deciding factor.
He said that the party will go for cooperation and not confrontation with the government and urged the TMC supremo to ensure that there is no post-result violence on BJP supporters.
Majumdar claimed that there have already been a few attacks in different parts of the state and bike rallies took place in the vicinity of the BJP office at Hastings in Kolkata.
The BJP leader also congratulated Banerjee for her recovery, saying that she has walked after moving on a wheelchair for a long time owing to an injury to her leg.
The TMC supremo was injured in one of her legs on March 10 while campaigning at Nandigram and had addressed all her election meetings and roadshows thereafter sitting on a wheelchair.
He said that Suvendu Adhikari, who fought against Banerjee spiritedly, also deserved to be congratulated.
