Niyamatpur/Durgapur (WB): Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday shared stage with the leaders of the Left Front, with which his party has entered into seat- sharing for the West Bengal Assembly elections, and expressed confidence about formation of a coalition government in the state.
Accusing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of unleashing “dictatorship”, he said his party has joined hands with the Left Front to defeat Trinamool Congress in the state where corruption is rampant.
“Congress and Left Front government will come to power in the state after the election,” he told election meetings of the two parties. Gandhi said when he asked Congress leaders in the state as to how they wanted to fight the polls, they replied that they “don’t want her dictatorship and want to join hands with the Left to defeat TMC”.
“I told them if you want this, it will be done. Now stand up together with the Left and defeat TMC,” he said. Hitting out at Banerjee, the Congress Vice President alleged that she had unleashed a “dictatorship” in the state.
“Five years back in the 2011 Assembly polls, we had not extended support to her for starting a dictatorship,” he said.
Referring to the Narada sting operation against TMC leaders, he said, “No action has been taken against them. No action has been taken against those involved in Saradha scam in five years by Banerjee.”
Gandhi charged that “corruption in Bengal under TMC rule has reached such a point that Congress and Left have come together to fight and defeat TMC”.
Congress and Left Front workers attended Gandhi’s meetings on a sultry day on the campaign trail for the upcoming polls and the Congress vice president expressed happiness that they had turned up to hear him.
Gandhi urged Congress workers to go to the people and seek their support for helping the formation of a coalition government in Bengal. The Congress Vice President said the Congress-Left Front government would be a “people’s government”.
Former state minister and ex-CPI(M) MP Bangsagopal Chowdhury, who was present on the stage with Gandhi at Niyamatpur, said the “terror and atrocities unleashed by TMC” as well as the corruption under its rule had forced the Left to join hands with Congress.
Gandhi, meanwhile, also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he accused him of trying to “kill democracy” in the country. He further charged that Banerjee was “doing the same” in West Bengal.
“Modiji is trying to crush democracy in the country. He has brought down Congress governments in Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the most arbitrary manner,” he said.
“He (Modi) wants there to be only one leader in the country and that is himself,” he said. “When I meet TMC MPs in Parliament, they say it is only what she (Mamata) wants that is done. None of them has any say. It is the same in BJP as well,” he said.
“We want Bengal to have a government in which everyone has a voice,” said Gandhi. (PTI)