Congress, CPI(M) helping BJP in Bengal: Mamata Banerjee

Asserting that the Trinamool Congress is contesting the Lok Sabha elections alone in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday alleged that the Congress and CPI(M) are helping the BJP in the state. Addressing an election rally here in Malda district, Banerjee claimed that the TMC will put up a spirited fight against the Narendra Modi-led dispensation at the Centre and will play a major role in installing an INDIA bloc government after the Lok Sabha polls.

"We don't have any alliance in Bengal with Congress. Here the CPI-M is having an alliance with Congress. Both are hand-in gloves with BJP and if you (voters) cast vote for Congress or CPI(M) that tantamounts to cutting the anti-BJP vote share and helping Narendra Modi. Congress and CPI(M) are the two eyes of BJP in this state," she said.

Banerjee claimed that the TMC had wanted to discuss seat sharing with Congress with the condition that they should not have any track with CPI(M) in Bengal but they didn't listen.

"The Congress and CPI(M) leaders in West Bengal have been speaking in the same voice of BJP and plotting against pro-people policies of the TMC-run government in the state," she said.

Asserting that the INDIA alliance is alive outside Bengal, Banerjee said "I gave INDIA alliance its name, but the alliance does not exist in Bengal, it will be functioning outside this state because of the pro-BJP stance of its state leaders."

She claimed that the TMC will play an important role in the INDIA alliance nationally after defeating BJP in Bengal on its own in the Lok Sabha polls.

Taking a jibe at Modi over his comments about the Calcutta High Court order regarding SSC recruitment in 2016, she said "26,000 youths have lost their jobs all of a sudden. Does that make you happy?"

She alleged that CPI(M) in collusion with BJP is plotting to stall teaching job recruitment initiatives of the state government.

"Even if there can be aberrations, when we try to find alternative ways to fix it, in the interest of the deserving educated youth, the CPI(M) and BJP rushes in to jeopardise that," she said.