Lashing out at the Congress and the CPI(M) for their “unprincipled” tie-up for the Assembly elections in the State, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wondered if grassroots workers of the two parties would support the alliance. “I would like to ask the grassroots level workers of Congress and CPI(M) whether they will support this unprincipled alliance. They have to decide,” Banerjee told an election meeting in the Congress stronghold of Malda.
Banerjee said her party would contest on its own and the “people are with us. We were with the people, we are with the people and we will be with the people.”
However, she said, “I am happy that instead of playing hide-and-seek, the Congress and CPI(M) have tied up. This is nothing new. The Congress has worked with the CPI(M) in the State Assembly”.
Attacking the Congress, she said, “We have unmasked them. Because of this mask that they wore, we had broken away to form the Trinamool Congress. We were the first to show that the Congress had sold themselves to the CPI(M).”
Banerjee said that in the 2011 Assembly polls her party workers had worked tirelessly in favour of the Congress, but the Congress had put up independent candidates to defeat TMC candidates.
She expressed confidence that the Trinamool Congress would not only return to power after the upcoming election, but the party would win all elections till 2022. “From the hills to the sea, we have worked and that is why people of the State are happy. But our rivals are busy finding faults with us. They are scared to fight us politically,” Banerjee said.