With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sharing the dais with her at a joint election rally here on Saturday, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee requested him to help West Bengal tide over the “bankruptcy” it faced owing to the “misrule of the Left Front government.”
Expressing her “gratefulness” to Dr. Singh for his visit to canvas for her party's candidates in six Assembly constituencies in the northern suburbs of the city, Ms. Banerjee said: “I will request the Prime Minister to help us as the State has been pushed towards social, political and financial bankruptcy by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government in the past 34 years.”
Sounding confident about the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance's chances of forming the next government, Ms. Banerjee said her party was committed to creating 10 lakh jobs for the youth in the State as well as setting up colleges, madrasas, universities and hospitals and would need the Centre's help with funds.
Without naming Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Anil Basu who allegedly used abusive language against her at an election meeting on Friday, she said: “The CPI(M) knows nothing but abuse and spreading falsehoods about its political opponents. I believe that not all Communists are bad and the CPI(M) is a shame even for true Communists. It has only taught to loot and destroy…the people will give them a fitting reply.”
Raising her oft-repeated slogan “CPI(M) Sarkar, Aar Nei Dorkar” (No need of CPI(M) government anymore), Ms. Banerjee appealed to the people not to cast “a single vote” for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Independent candidates.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that responses received from across the State had convinced him about the people's faith in the alliance and the victory of the alliance
