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Tuesday, Jul 22, 2008
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Mamata to abstain from voting

Special Correspondent

“The Trinamool Congress cannot be purchased. We believe in principles”

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

EQUIDISTANCE: Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee addressing a rally in Kolkata on Monday. Sharing the dais with her is former Congress leader Somen Mitra.

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress chief and lone member of the party in the Lok Sabha, Mamata Banerjee, will abstain from voting in the trust vote on Tuesday.

“I shall not vote with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress or the Communist Party of India (Marxist), though we [the Trinamool Congress] are against the nuclear deal … We will maintain equidistance from these parties. I am not going to Delhi,” she told a rally on the occasion of “Save Democracy Day,” here on Monday.

Criticising the United Progressive Alliance government for “not seeking a mandate from the people on the nuclear deal,” she said her party did not think the Centre would check the rise in prices of essential commodities — an issue that was the concern of the people, rather than the nuclear deal. She was also critical of the horse-trading indulged by the parties. “What is going on is shameful. The Trinamool Congress cannot be purchased. We believe in principles.”

The rally was organised in memory of those who died in police firing while marching to Writers Buildings in 1993. “We also salute the victims of firing in Nandigram and those who died against the forcible acquisition of land [for the Tata Motors project] in Singur,” she said.

“We are in favour of industry but the State government has to give back the land forcibly acquired from the peasants in Singur.”

She announced a new slogan on the occasion — “We want jobs for all. We want food in the stomachs of all.”

Somen Mitra, former president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, shared the dais with her.

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