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Trinamool only hope for Bengal: Mamata

Kolkata: “The Trinamool Congress is the only hope of the State. Keep faith in us, I am sure that the CPI(M) will be ousted soon,” party chief Mamata Banerjee said on Friday. She was addressing a party rally at Jibantala in Canning in the State's South 24 Parganas district.

The “terror unleashed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)guns” cannot prevent the Trinamool from coming to power in the State, she said, appealing to the people to wait for two more months before the Election Commission steps in to decide the dates for the Assembly elections.

Ms. Banerjee alleged that a few CPI(M) supporters lobbed bombs targeting the car of senior party leader and Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Partha Chatterjee, while he was on his way to the rally venue.

According to State's Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Surajit Kar Purakayastha, four Trinamool supporters and eight CPI(M) supporters were injured in a clash. The Trinamool alleged that the clash broke out after Mr. Chatterjee's car was attacked while the CPI(M) alleged that its office was set on fire by the former.

Ms. Banerjee said her party fought the movements in Singur and Nandigram alone without any assistance from the Centre. “We are a part of the UPA government because of our strong presence and people's support and not because of anyone's mercy,” she said. Ms. Banerjee said she could have demanded early Assembly elections by imposing President's rule in the State but desisted from doing so as she did not want to give the CPI(M) a chance to “gather false sympathy” over the issue.

She criticised the State government for its “failure” to bring about development in the district during its 34-year-long rule. Reacting to the strong criticism directed against her by State Housing Minister Goutam Deb on Thursday for not attending a function organised by the State government to rename a satellite township after CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu, Ms. Banerjee accused the State government of “forcibly acquiring lakhs of acres of land from farmers” for building the township.

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