Bhattacharjee at the news conference. Picture by Amit Dutta

Calcutta, May 16: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee treated the Congress with kid gloves and tore into the Trinamul Congress while joining the Left Front’s civic poll campaign in an effort to exploit the split between the UPA partners.

“We have seen both unity and disunity in the Opposition earlier. Now the Congress is opposing Trinamul in many places and on many issues. Trinamul is such a violent, lawless and coercive party that even the Congress has been compelled to oppose it. I will tell you more (on the Congress’s attitude towards Trinamul) after the polls, ’’ the chief minister said when asked how the rift in the Opposition would help the ruling Left.

Addressing the media at the state CPM headquarters, he stressed the Left’s initiatives in decentralising power to local bodies but acknowledged “the role of Rajiv Gandhi” in introducing the constitutional changes to institutionalise panchayati raj.

He was mild with the Congress on price rise, calling the “Centre’s failure” to curb inflation “frustrating”. He refused to comment on the first anniversary of the second UPA.

His sniggers at his challenger’s claims of being a reliable alternative stood in sharp contrast, though he never named Mamata Banerjee.

“I don’t want to waste my time replying to a person of unstable mind. She neither knows the Constitution nor cares for it,’’ the chief minister said dismissing the Trinamul chief’s demands for early Assembly polls.

“Don’t put us on the same ground as Trinamul on political morality,’’ he said, reacting to suggestions that seeking a fresh mandate would be a moral imperative if the Left lost the May 30 civic polls to 81 civic bodies.

Bhattacharjee stressed that the state alone could bring the polls forward in a normal situation and accused Mamata of trying to make a case for central intervention by “instigating more violence in connivance with Maoists”. “Even the Centre does not buy her claim that there are no Maoists in Bengal,” he said.

He added to the litany of charges the alleged inclusion of the RSS in the “Trinamul-led rainbow coalition of blind, poisonous forces of anarchy and fundamentalism”, apparently with an eye on Muslim votes, which the CPM is desperate to snatch from Mamata.

Referring to Mamata’s claim of knowledge about a “plan to incite communal trouble before the polls”, Bhattacharjee questioned her secular credentials further. “Who gave her the information.... This issue has never before cropped up ahead of polls in Bengal. She is criminalising the language of state politics.”

Ridiculing Mamata’s promise to turn Calcutta into London and north Bengal into Switzerland, Bhattacharjee called her manifesto “unintelligent, absurd and idiotic”.

He mocked the railway minister’s spree of introducing new trains to belittle her development credentials as a poll plank. “Every day she is announcing new trains — Duronto, Jhulonto (hanging), Uronto (flying), Dubonto (sinking). What has been the performance of the six junior Union ministers from Trinamul in one year?”

The chief minister admitted “a tough political fight ahead” but put up a brave face claiming the front would win the “majority of the civic boards”.

“A large section of people had voted against us in the Lok Sabha polls. But the people have seen what the Left and Trinamul have done since.”

Bhattacharjee did not name the aborted Nano project but linked his derailed industrialisation drive with urbanisation. “We stand for continuity, for progress — industrialisation and urbanisation with better civic amenities. Trinamul represents the forces of backwardness. I believe the people, particularly the youth, will defeat these evil forces.”

Mamata is likely to respond to the charges in her campaign meetings tomorrow.

The Congress “strongly” protested the bid to “drive a wedge between us”.

“The collapse of the alliance for the civic polls was a sad development. But we are confident of renewing the tie-up for next year’s Assembly polls,” state party working president Pradip Bhattacharya said.