Left Is Scared Of Opp Mahajot, Says Cong Chief

9 yrs on, Sonia & Mamata share dais

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Malda/Islampur/Behrampore: Two days after Rahul Gandhi blazed a Left-singeing trail across Bengal, mother Sonia Gandhi landed in the state on Monday to carry on the Red bashing, this time with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee at her side. The Left is running scared of the Congress-Trinamool alliance, the UPA chief said, heaping praise on Mamata. The AICC chairperson always had a soft corner for Mamata and made it a point to talk to her in Parliament. The Trinamool boss, in turn, met Sonia in confidence even when some Pradesh Congress leaders were averse to an alliance. During his visit to Kolkata, Rahul had said he had “fond memories” of Mamata visiting their home when Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were alive. The bonhomie was seen in public for the first time in nine years at Behrampore’s Lalgola on Monday. A crowd of 1.5 lakh turned up to see Mamata, Sonia and state Congress president Pranab Mukherjee — the architects of the new alliance that has emerged as a major challenge to Left Front — share the dais in Behrampore. Over a lakh gathered in Malda and Islampur as well. Sonia carried on from where Rahul had left. The theme was the same: poverty and underdevelopment in Bengal. Like her son, she also painted the Left as “anti-poor”, but needled CPM further on the Sachar Committee report. “The state government will have to answer why they have not done anything for the poor in so many years,” Sonia said in Behrampore. In Samsi, 70 km from Malda, she dug it in hard: “CPM should introspect what it has done to Sonar Bangla. The state government failed to implement the NREGA scheme that assures 100 days’ jobs to the rural poor. Even job cards have not been issued to people seeking jobs.” “I feel sorry when I see the condition of the poor in West Bengal and the Left Front calls itself the messiah of the poor.” Reaching out to the sizeable minority population in the region, Sonia laid emphasis on how the UPA government had paid heed to the Sachhar Committee recommendations. “The Left Front government does not have a particularly good record as far as implementation of the Sachhar report goes,” she said. In Behrampore, she spoke of a proposed branch of Aligarh Muslim University and projects to provide security to labourers from the unorganized sector. Sonia also slammed the CPM-led government for trying to “hijack” development programmes run by the Pradesh Congress president.