Mamata Banerjee claims RSS helping Congress in Bengal

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused the Congress of taking help of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to defeat Trinamool Congress in Bengal.

In a no-holds-barred attack on Congress candidates Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary and Abhijit Banerjee (son of former president Pranab Mukherjee), Mamata Banerjee said both of them were getting support of the RSS.

Speaking at an election rally in Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency, Mamata also mentioned that Pranab Mukherjee had visited the RSS office and “RSS pracharaks are working for them (Abhijit and Adhir). Chaudhary is contesting from Baharampur and Mukerjee from Jangipur. Both of them are sitting MPs.

“The Baharampur MP engages in a lot of tall talk. But in the morning, he is with the BJP, in the afternoon he is with the Congress and in the evening, he follows the Communist Party of India (Marixst). I want to emphasise that both he and the Congress candidate from Jangipur are getting support from the RSS,” she said.

Describing her comments as “infantile”, Chowdhury said he would not comment at all. Abhijit Mukherjee could not be reached as his phone was switched off.

“How can Mamata Banerjee, who paved the way for the rise of the RSS and BJP in Bengal by allying with them after setting up the TMC, comment against Abhijit and Adhir? She likes imagining many things. The heat is also searing, and she must have lost her mind,” shot back Congress legislator and leader of the opposition in Bengal assembly Abdul Mannan.

Mamata Banerjee also said if the TMC had not broken away from the Congress they would not have been able to uproot the Left from Bengal. “We (TMC leaders) were all in Congress. If we had not quit the Congress to form TMC in 1998, the people of the state would not have become free from the misrule of the Left Front. Congress would have never launched a movement to unseat the Left,” she said.

The Left Front ruled Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, when, led by Mamata Banerjee, the TMC stormed to power.

First Published: Apr 15, 2019 21:09 IST