TERMING the CPM’s rally held Sunday at the Brigade Parade Ground here as a “flop show”, the ruling Trinamool Congress government claimed that the CPM’s meeting had poor attendance.
“Today the CPM’s meeting was devoid of crowd. None of the speakers could speak for more than five minutes,” Trinamool secretary-general Partha Chatterjee told reporters in Kolkata. “All the leaders who spoke were frustrated. They have lost connection with the people,” he added.
Countering allegations of the TMC government being anti-democratic made by CPM leaders during the rally, Chatterjee alleged that the Marxist rule in the state had destroyed any semblance of democracy for 24 years.
“How can the party, which could not do anything when it was in power for 34 years, now suddenly say ‘we will do it’? How is it that suddenly they are talking about democracy?” Chatterjee wondered, alleging that if the Left Front returns to power “democracy will be in trouble”.
“It is funny that those who killed democracy are now talking about it. Our government has been working night and day, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee to restore the harm done by the Left rule,” the TMC leader added.
Meanwhile, TMC member in the Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay slammed allegations of “match-fixing” with the BJP made by CPM politburo member and MP Mohammed Salim. He said the CPM was the most “opportunist” political party of India, borne out by history when it tried to topple the Congress-led government in 2008 and helped anti-Congress forces in 1989 against the Rajiv Gandhi government.
“The CPM is the most opportunist political party. It may forget, but the memories of the CPM-led Left trying to topple the UPA-1 led by Manmohan Singh in 2008 to help the BJP and how the CPM leaders joined hands with BJP leaders in Shahid Minar Maidan in 1989 against the Rajiv Gandhi government, are still fresh,” Bandopadhyay said.
Further, he said, “In Bengal, the CPM, BJP and Congress are working in tandem with each other. They should not talk much. The development work that Mamata Banerjee government has done itself is the proof of the work that TMC has done in the last four and a half years.”
Addressing a rally of party workers, which was also attended by state minister Shashi Panja, Bandopadhyay noted, “It is Mamata Banerjee who has established the contact of CMO to BDO.” He added that the development work undertaken by the TMC government will help the party win more than 220 seats out of 294 in next year’s Assembly election.