Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee came down strongly against the Trinamool Congress on Tuesday for allegedly using black money in its campaign for the Assembly polls in a way that is unprecedented in West Bengal.
“They [the Trinamool Congress] have no dearth of illegal funds. Do they think that they will be able to buy the votes with this money? The people of this State will never bow to such designs,” he said at an election rally at Diamond Harbour in the State's South 24 Parganas district.
“Its leaders are moving about in helicopters with this black money… they are funding advertisements on television… I have been involved in several elections in the State in the past but have never before seen such huge amounts of money being used by a party,” Mr Bhattacharjee said.
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Deploring “this game involving money,” the Chief Minister also criticised the way the Trinamool has been joining one alliance and then another for the sake of power.
“The Trinamool Congress was in government at the Centre with the BJP once. Today, it has joined hands with the Congress. What will happen in the future, one wonders. It can well tie-up, if necessary, with the BJP — a party which, with its communal agenda, will never be allowed to raise its head by the people of our State,” he said.
Mr. Bhattacharjee also was critical of some newspapers and television channels for the opinion polls they have been coming out with.
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“Almost daily it is being said that the Left Front will lose [in the Assembly elections in the State] and that the Trinamool will win. The owners of these newspapers and television channels do not want us (the Left) to win… they think that the people will accept whatever they have to say but little do they realise that the wisdom of the people is much more than what they might think,” he observed.
Pointing out that the Railway Ministry under Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was in a bad state financially and had failed to provide employment despite the huge number of vacancies, he asked: “Do they [the Trinamool] plan to run a government the way they do the Railways?...What is their policy? What will they do in government?”
CPI(M) petitions EC
New Delhi Special Correspondent writes :
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) petitioned the Election Commission on Tuesday charging the Trinamool Congress with using unaccounted money in the West Bengal elections and the party's leadership with harbouring a legal absconder.
Polit Bureau member and MP Sitaram Yechury met two Election Commissioners here and handed over letters from Biman Bose, Chairman of the Left Front and Secretary of the CPI(M) West Bengal State Committee.
In his letter, Mr. Bose said the party had concrete evidence that the Trinamool Congress had used a “thoroughly reprehensible method to effect the inflow of black money into the election process'' on March 25 this year.
The party said that on that day the Trinamool Congress summoned its 226 candidates and handed over Rs. 15 lakh each in cash, the total amounting to Rs. 34 crore. “In order to conceal the source of the money received by the candidates, an ingenious but absolutely illegal method was adopted. The Trinamool Congress printed coupons of Rs. 100, Rs. 200 and Rs. 500 denominations.''