By IANS,
Kolkata : Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Friday charged her former ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with having put up candidates in all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in order to help the state’s ruling Left Front.
Banerjee also accused the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) of having blackmailed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre every now and then for enjoying the loaves of office during the time it provided outside support.
“The BJP has put up candidates in all the seats to cut into the anti-left votes and help the Left Front,” Banerjee said in an interactive programme on a Bengali news channel Star Ananda.
The Trinamool chief claimed that even when her party was with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), it had never lent support to the BJP. “We had our differences with the BJP. We never supported the Gujarat riots of 2002.”
Ridiculing the CPI-M for terming her brand of politics as unethical, Banerjee said: “We are not going to take lessons on ethics from the CPI-M. They had aligned with the BJP to remove Rajiv Gandhi from power.”
“And now they are flirting with the Biju Janata Dal, which was all along in the NDA. The CPI-M had said so many things against him regarding the POSCO project. Now they are at the BJD’s feet in their bid to form the Third Front.”
Banerjee also exuded confidence that the Congress would not again turn to the CPI-M and other Left parties for support to form a government at the centre. “I don’t think the Congress will form a government with help from the Left parties.”
“We all know the way they tried to bring down Manmohan Singh’s government and blackmailed it when they were supporting it from outside. The CPI-M constantly put pressure on the Congress and placed their own men in key positions.”
“I am confident the Congress will not try to form a stable government with these unstable parties,” he said.