While his other colleagues maintained a studied silence Trinamool Congress general secretary and State Minister Partha Chatterjee on Wednesday tended to come out with a tongue-in-cheek reaction to an allegation made by the BJP that the Trinamool Congress had struck a triple-entente with Bangla terror outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to win the 2011 Assembly elections.
Reacting to Tuesday’s charges levelled by the BJP central observer for Bengal Siddharthnath Singh that the BNP and JMB helped the Trinamool win 45 out of 75 seats in the border districts, Chatterjee questioned the “veracity of such reports.”Acting cautiously not to delve deep into the controversy Chatterjee wondered “on what basis Singh was making such wild charges.” How can a leader of a national party quote from Intelligence reports of a foreign country he asked adding “it makes it clear as to which party has bigger access to Bangladeshi outfits.”
Chatterjee who did nothing to deny allegations of his party’s truck with JMB or in the least BNP, refused to take more posers saying certain issues were of national importance and should be answered at appropriate levels.He said: “Singh should know that BNP and JMB men live in Bangladesh and have no means to come and vote in India.”
Singh had on Wednesday made a sensational remark alleging that in 2011 the Trinamool got the BNP-JMB network to influence the voters in 75 border seats winning 45 out of them.Out of the stated 75 seats the Trinamool had won 32, the Congress got 13 while the left bagged 30 seats.
Questions were also raised on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s abrupt withdrawal from the Teesta water sharing pact in 2011 that naturally put ruling Awami league in an awkward position giving political mileage to the BNP.Bengali singer-cum-Trinamool leader Indranil Sen parroting Chatterjee said: “It is difficult to understand how the BJP could get access to confidential Intelligence reports of other countries. The BJP is trying to create a vertical divide in Bengal by applying North Indian tactics.”
When asked to comment BJP State president, Rahul Sinha hit back at the Trinamool leadership saying “What Siddharthnath Singh has said is only the tip of the ice-berg. Singh does not read Bengali newspapers of Bangladesh otherwise he could have given you more information. There are more such reports that will put our state to shame.”
Meanwhile the NIA investigating into the Burdwan blast case on Wednesday dug out the diary of “possible terrorists who received training at the Burdwan camp.”
The dairy belonging to absconding terrorist Qadir Quazi has a host of names and their phone numbers” NIA sources said adding the booklet contained the names and numbers of many women indicating how the JMB had spread its network among the fairer sex.