Mamata gives ultimatum to CPI-M to withdraw allegation

Kolkata, Jun 20 (PTI) Trinamool Congress will demand
sacking of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government in India's
eastern state of West Bengal if Communist Party of
India-Marxist (CPI-M) does not withdraw within 48 hours its
accusation that the party had links with Maoists in West
Midnapore.

TC chief Mamata Banerjee said, "If statements by
(CPI-M state secretary) Biman Bose and (Chief Minister)
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee linking our party with Maoists are not
withdrawn within 48 hours, we will agitate to demand sacking
of the government by the Centre."

"We don't believe in individual killing and don't have
link with Maoists. We have been demanding a ban on Maoists in
the state," Banerjee told reporters.

Alleging that the Chief Minister and other CPI-M
leaders were maligning her party by seeking to link it with
Maoists, she said, "it is only to cover up their sins in the
last 32 years."

On the CPI-M's allegation that People's Committee
against Police Atrocities leader in West Midnapore Chhatradhar
Mahato, who is heading the tribal agitation there, belonged to
the Trinamool Congress, Banerjee said he was expelled years
ago.

Banerjee demanded that the Centre declare Bankura,
Purulia and West Midnapore disturbed under the Disturbed Area
Act.

"CPI-M has been giving free passage to Maoists,"
Banerjee said.

The Chief Minister, she alleged, was a Maoist. "He
himself had said once that he is fond of Maoist books and
literature and has them at his residence."

Her party, she claimed was not informed either by the
state government or the Centre about the operation by security
forces in Lalgarh.

Banerjee said, "In the name of operation against
Maoists, they are torturing and arresting common people, women
and children."

Lalgarh, she claimed, was the Chief Minister's
creation. "He has allowed the situation to drift." PTI PKC
SKT
NNNN