Congress should join federal front, but not as leader: Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has said that it was wrong on the part of Congress to serve the notice seeking removal of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, making it amply clear that she is not going to endorse whatever the Congress does.

While Congress gets set to approach the Supreme Court against rejection of the notice, the Trinamool Congress chief said: “Congress was wrong to give the notice against the CJI. Congress wanted us to support it, but we did not. I told Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi not to go for the CJI’s removal. As a matter of fact, we don’t want to interfere into the functions of the judiciary,” Mamata said in an interview she gave to ‘News 18 Bangla’ channel on Tuesday.

The Trinamool Congress chief also reiterated what she had told Congress during the recent Tripura assembly elections to “give a united fight” to BJP.

“I had told Rahul Gandhi to forge an alliance with our party and the indigenous tribal outfit against BJP. I had also proposed an equitable seat sharing formula, but Congress didn’t heed to my proposal,” she said.

On the same breath, Mamata mentioned how Congress leaders in Delhi want the Trinamool’s cooperation in Parliament while its leaders in Bengal are up in arms against her party.

The Trinamool chief, in the interview, also made it clear that Congress should join the proposed federal front against BJP as one of the partners, and not as a leader of the front. “Congress has to sacrifice for the sake of the front. It can’t have its way at will. If we are looking at a one-on-one fight against BJP, then we should leave it to BJD to fight the polls in Odisha, Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh and K. Chandrashekhar Rao to fight the polls in Telengana. Every party of the proposed federal front has to follow the principle, and so should the Congress,” Mamata said.