By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal’s ruling Left Front’s (LF) chairman Biman Bose Monday criticised Rahul Gandhi’s comparison of the state’s Purulia with Orissa’s Kalahandi region, saying Purulia was even better then the Congress leader’s own Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
“Purulia is better than Kalahandi, it is even better than Amethi,” Bose said at a press meet in the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) headquarters in presence of all other LF allies.
Gandhi Friday compared Purulia to impoverished districts like Orissa’s Kalahandi and the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.
Gandhi’s speech at Purulia in his recent visit to the state for election campaign was incorrect, Bose said, adding Gandhi took a round of the place on helicopter and it was impossible to understand the features of a place this way.
“During the Congress rule in the centre, we (LF) never got any help for Purulia. We did not get any help from Nehru or Indira Gandhi. Even Rajiv Gandhi did not extend any help for Purulia. During that time there was a food deficit of 60 percent in Purulia. But now the place has become self-sufficient,” he said.
“He (Gandhi) just said what he was briefed by his men,” he added.
The LF chairman held the opposition parties responsible for deaths of 39 LF workers in recent times, killed during the election campaign in various parts of the state by opposition parties like the Congress and the Trinamool Congress or the Maoists.