The Trinamool Congress has once again attacked the Congress for its “duplicity” alleging the tri-colour party upset the Aam Admi Party’s apple cart to enable the BJP to take control of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation.
TMC mouthpiece ‘Jago Bangla’ in its editorial alleged that the Congress acted as BJP’s collaborator and helped it occupy the CMC at the cost of AAP which had won 14 seats against the BJP’s 12.
“The AAP got 14 seats and BJP and Congress got 12 and 8 seats respectively. The Akalis got one … in that case the Congress councilors decided not to take part in the election process… and finally the BJP and the AAP were tied at 14 votes each with one of the eight Congress councilors coming out to vote … it is clear thatCongress and Akali councilor voted for the BJP which forcibly occupied the Board by getting one vote of AAP cancelled … this proves that the Congress is acting as the BJP’s collaborator … the Congress will have to decide whether it is on the side of the BJP or secularism,” the TMCmouthpiece said.
The TMC paper’s editorial comes amid reports that it could enter into some kind of adjustment with Nationalist Congress Party, and even the Congress apart from the local parties in the coastal State. In fact sources in the TMC said that talks were on with NCP chief Sharad Pawar for seat adjustments.
When asked to comment on the party’s stand senior Trinamool MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy said “Congress has become irrelevant in India and so it is trying to survive by holding the hands of the BJP … there is no difference between them in so far as doing dirty politics is concerned … or else how will they explain the BJP’s victory in Chandigarh.”
Another party MP Shantanu Sen said that the TMC and its leader Mamata Banerjee was coming up as the automatic choice of the people as “the Congress has failed to hold ground in many States where the voters had reposed faith in it … Goa is one such example … despite the people voting in its favour the party could not hold its ground and the BJP wrested power from it … The Congress will continue to go down in the coming days.”
Tuesday’s attack on the Congress comes a few months after the TMC mouthpiece called the Congress a party that had gone into the deep-freezer and that a time had come when the TMC would take its place.
The Congress promptly reacted to the TMC leader’s remarks with PradeshCongress president and party’s Lok Sabha Leader Adhere Chowdhury attacking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for “starting the tradition of political horse-trading in Bengal which was absent in the State.”
Wondering “who purchased the Congress leaders in Bengal … who threatened them into joining their ranks … who purchased the entire Congress MLAs in Meghalaya … Mamata Banerjee has to give a lot of explanations .. and now the BJP being the party with no difference is doing the same other States … even the leaders of the other oppositionparties look at the Trinamool with suspicion … so the Congress is sticking to its principles and it will surely emerge victorious and the TMC and the BJP will soon be exposed.”
Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt launch itself in a big way the TMC has decided celebrate the Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary ---National Youth Day --- in a big way in Haryana, party sources in Kolkata said.