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Feb. 23: The Congress high command has apparently asked the state unit to “stand by” the Mamata Banerjee government in its opposition to the Citu-backed general strike on February 28 and in the backlash over the Burdwan murders yesterday.
A Congress source said from Delhi that the high command took the decision after Mamata met Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee last night in the capital and conveyed her concerns over the public criticism of her by some state Congress leaders over her comments in connection with the Park Street rape case.
“Trinamul is our principal ally. So we are always with Mamataji,” AICC general secretary and Bengal in-charge Shakeel Ahmed said today.
A state Congress leader said the Bengal unit had “decided to steer clear of making any comments on the Burdwan killings that could antagonise the government”.
State Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya said: “We condemn the Burdwan murders but at the same time, we cannot forget that Pradip Tah was one of those named in the FIR on the killing of Congress MLA Kashinath Tah in 1982.”
Told that the chief minister’s statements on yesterday’s murders were at variance with those of her cabinet colleagues, Burdwan (rural) district Congress president Azizul Haque refused comment.
While Mamata had said the murders of Pradip and Kamal Gayen were the fallout of the CPM’s “internal feud”, ministers such as Firhad Hakim and Malay Ghatak had claimed the duo fell prey to janarosh (people’s anger)”.
On the February 28 general strike, PCC spokesperson Abdul Mannan today issued a statement saying the state Congress would “oppose” it. “We shall oppose the strike even though the Congress-affiliated Intuc is part of the conglomerate of 11 trade unions that have called it. We will do so because it was originally an industrial strike but now, Citu wants to use the bandh to serve its own purpose.”
Trinamul welcomed the ally’s gesture. “We are happy to have the Congress by our side,” a Trinamul general secretary said, adding that Mamata was aware of “the Congress’s goodwill gesture”.
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