The Congress has dared the Trinamool Congress to win a single election in Bengal alone. “Had it not been for the Congress’ supreme sacrifice Trinamool would not have come to power in Bengal and we dare them to win a single election contesting alone,” PCC president Pradip Bhattacharya said on Wednesday.
He was reacting to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's earlier statement that she had committed a blunder in allying with the Congress in the 2011 Assembly elections. “Sometimes I feel we took a wrong decision in going with the Congress. Had we not gone with them we could have won 293 seats in the 2011 Assembly elections,” she said.
The Trinamool had won 185 seats and the Congress 42 taking the alliance tally to 227. Subsequently however the Congress walked out of the alliance in to2012 soon after the Trinamool came out of the UPA-II on a host of issues including FDI in retail, diesel price hike and the Centre’s reported refusal to grant Bengal a special economic package. The Congress and the Trinamool were contesting the ongoing panchayat elections separately and Banerjee has already hinted at “no-future-alliance” policy with the Congress. “We find it more convenient going it alone rather than allowing others to riding our back to success,” she said at an election rally.
Reacting sharply to the Chief Minister’s statements senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan said “no party in Bengal can defeat the left Front without taking help of the Congress. The next elections would show who rides whose back.” The Trinamool had resorted to massive electoral violence apart from victimising opposition leaders by lodging false cases against them, he said adding “it will not be easy for the Trinamool to do what it is doing during the panchayat elections and then the real litmus test would take place.”
In 2009 general elections Trinamool and the Congress together had won 25 seats out of which the Congress bagged six and the Trinamool 19. One seat each was won by the BJP and the SUCI. Banerjee had earlier written on the Facebook that the UPA-II was taking the country towards an economic ruin by regular doses of FDI in various sectors. She said the Centre was compromising the country's security by allowing FDI in Telecom and Defence sectors. “The whole telecom platform will be controlled by foreign companies which owe their allegiance to their own countries,” she said adding this step would compromise the country’s security interests.
“By increasing FDI in defence we are compromising safety and security of the nation. It is a myth that FDI will bring transfer of technology to Indian companies as there is a ‘technology denial’ regime” which did not permit developed world to transfer defence technology she maintained.