The cracks within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) widened further with both the Congress and the CPI(M) attacking Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for running an “insensitive and anti-people Government” and asserting that there would be no alliance with the Trinamool Congress in Bengal.
While Bengal Pradesh Congress president, Adhir Chowdhury attacked Banerjee for embarking on luxury tours to foreign lands when dengue cases were on the rise, CPI(M) State secretary Md Salim iterated, there was “no question of any alliance with TMC.”
Insisting that Banerjee was insensitive to people’s woes Chowdhury said, “we have a Chief Minister who has time to go abroad on luxury trips but has no time to tackle dengue … We had already warned the state government about the rampant spread of dengue during August-September. This is due to the ignorance of the government towards the common people… This Government does not understand the pain of the common people.”
Wondering as to how a person who did not accept government salary and lived off the royalty from her paintings and books could spend lakhs of rupees for staying in costliest hotels, Chowdhury said, “we have heard that the Chief Minister does not take her salary. She sustains herself from the sale of her books and from her paintings. How could you afford to stay at a hotel in Madrid that costs Rs 3 lakhs per day?”
Banerjee who last week returned from a 12-day official trip of Spain and Dubai had earlier claimed that this was her most successful trip as the Chief Minister of the State. “This is perhaps the most successful trip ever in my life,” Banerjee said adding her Spain and Dubai trip would result in huge investment in the State.
Chowdhury however questioned the outcome of her trip saying, “like on previous occasions when she would boast of massive investment proposals after yearly Bengal business summits, this time too things would end up in a whimper.
“This was no less than a luxury trip … when you (Banerjee) went holidaying abroad … How much did you spend on this trip? Which industrialist have you brought here? Don't fool the people here,” Chowdhury said adding if even 10 percent of her previous investment claims had materialized then Bengal would not have been a cash and industry starved state and lakhs of people would have received jobs in the State.
Salim also a CPI(M) politburo member on the other hand said that despite vested interests were weaving wild stories of alliances in Bengal “there is no question of any alliance with either the BJP or the TMC … we are fighting against both the parties … nationally we are fighting to oust BJP and in Bengal we are fighting to oust TMC as they are the two sides of the same coin and no descent, civilized country can have such political parties ruling them.” Earlier Bengal Opposition Leader Suvendu Adhikari had suspected hawala links to such foreign trips taken by the TMC leaders saying there confirmed reports of money being laundered by way of foreign travels undertaken by many top TMC leaders.