The Pradesh Congress leadership on Sunday asked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to clarify to the people of the State whether or not her party was going to support the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the next Lok Sabha elections.
“Make it clear to the people of the State, either at a press conference or a public rally, whether your party is going to support the Bharatiya Janata Party or not,” senior State Congress leader Manas Ranjan Bhunia said at a rally organised to pay tribute to the 13 Youth Congress activists, who were killed in police firing on this day in 1993.
Referring to Ms. Banerjee’s recent comments at an election rally that her party “will not support BJP leader Narendra Modi,” Dr. Bhunia asked: “ Is it not true that you sent flower bouquets to Mr. Modi when he won the Assembly election in Gujarat?”
Dr. Bhunia accused the Trinamool chairperson of “switching sides, allying with Congress sometimes and sometimes with the BJP.”
‘Wants to be PM’
“By giving a call for a federal front she is nurturing a desire to become the Prime Minister,” he said, adding that in the country with 28 States and about 85 crore voters the idea of a federal front can never be realised.
“She is heaping insults on the Congress,” Dr. Bhunia said, accusing Ms. Banerjee of using the Congress to win the 2011 Assembly elections and then severing ties based on her whims and fancies.
“We contested the Assembly elections in 65 seats and won 42 of them. Had we contested the polls on 98 seats, which as the party president I had demanded, we would have won 70 and Mamata Banerjee would have had to stand at the doors of Sonia Gandhi seeking her support,” he said.
The State Congress leadership also extended support to the Youth Congress’ demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the July 21, 1993 incident.
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