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KOLKATA, 5 May:<\/strong> Outgoing West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday ruled out stepping down after her party’s defeat in the Assembly polls, claiming that the verdict was not a genuine public mandate but the result of a conspiracy.<\/p>\n Banerjee also alleged that the TMC’s contest in the polls was not against the BJP, but against the Election Commission, which worked “for the BJP.”<\/p>\n “The question of my resignation does not arise, as we were defeated not by a public mandate but by a conspiracy\u2026 I did not lose, I will not go to Lok Bhavan.<\/p>\n \u00a0They can take action as per constitutional norms,” she told a press conference here.<\/p>\n Banerjee alleged large-scale irregularities in the counting process, claiming that mandate in nearly 100 seats was “looted” and that counting was deliberately slowed down to demoralise her party.<\/p>\n “A black chapter in history has been created,” she asserted.<\/p>\n The TMC chief accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of undermining people’s democratic rights.<\/p>\n Banerjee also announced the formation of a 10-member fact-finding committee to visit areas “affected by post-poll violence” and assess the ground situation.<\/p>\n She dismissed as baseless allegations of post-poll violence in 2021.<\/p>\n Banerjee said several leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc had reached out to her to express solidarity following the poll outcome.<\/p>\n “INDIA bloc leaders called me up to express solidarity. Sonia ji and Rahul Gandhi have spoken to me,” she said.<\/p>\n Banerjee said that she would now focus on strengthening the opposition alliance at the national level.<\/p>\n The BJP secured a decisive majority in the 294-member Assembly by winning 207 seats, ending the TMC’s 15-year rule in the state. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KOLKATA, 5 May: Outgoing West Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday ruled out stepping down after her party’s defeat in the Assembly polls, claiming that the verdict was not a genuine public mandate but the result of a conspiracy. Banerjee also alleged that the TMC’s contest in the polls was not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-282275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282292,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282275\/revisions\/282292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}