Congress alienates Trinamool in Bengal

Congress alienates Trinamool in Bengal

Relations between two of the biggest UPA partners seem to be straining. Bengal Pradesh Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya on Tuesday said his party was ready to take on the challenge thrown by the Trinamool, which was trying to gobble up the lesser partner in the State.

The former Congress MP was addressing a crowd at Raiganj in North Dinajpur, where local MP Deepa Dasmunshi has raised a movement against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for trying to stonewall efforts to build an AIIMS replica.

“They are trying to throw challenges to us in every respect in order to lick us off but I should remind them that if they continue to do so we are ready to take their challenge as the Congress is quite efficient in doing so,” said Bhattacharya, adding that any partner that backstabs the Congress gets annihilated itself, much like the Left Front.

Dasmunshi said, “Every time we try to bring the AIIMS-type hospital in Bengal, she (Banerjee) tries to push it to south Bengal. She is telling Delhi to transfer the facility to Kalyani, which will not be accepted by us. We will start a bigger agitation against them.”

Already the two partners have fallen out in the State and are planning to fight the panchayat elections separately. In fact, the PCC has already written to the high command, asking for permission to spruce up the organisation so the Congress can be strong enough to contest the panchayat elections separately.

“Together we have almost half the panchayat seats in the State. But if the two parties fight separately the Congress will able to retain its seats in its strongholds but it is the Trinamool which will suffer the most,” Bhattacharya said.