Launching a scathing attack on the Left Front here on Tuesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned it against stalling the process of development in West Bengal, and asked her political opponents “to go to sleep for 10 years” and allow her to work.
Speaking at an official function a day after the signing of the tripartite agreement that paved the way for the setting up of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration for the Darjeeling hills, which was punctuated by a shutdown here in protest, Ms. Banerjee hinted that the Left parties had “attacked her from behind.”
“In the 34 years that you were in power, we have created obstacles in only two places — Singur and Nandigram — that too when land from poor farmers was being taken away by force.”
Inaugurating a slew of projects for north Bengal, including an airport in Cooch Behar and announcing the setting up of a mini Secretariat in north Bengal — which Ms. Banerjee promised to personally visit every three months — as well as several projects of the Railways, she asked the people to not pay any attention to “those who take money to call a bandh and then disappear.”
The two-day general strike in the plains had been called by the Bangla O Banglabhasha Bachao Committee, which claims that the tripartite agreement is only a step towards granting a separate State of Gorkhaland.
