Congress suffered due to alliance with TMC: Adhir Chowdhury

West Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury today said his party had suffered badly due to its alliance with the TMC, whose "sole motive" was to weaken the grand old party in the state.

"If you see the statistics of the number of seats we had won when we had an alliance with the TMC, you would see it is the Congress which has always made sacrifices. And in return, the TMC has always tried to weaken our party organization be it by poaching our elected representatives or by letting loose violence on us," he told reporters here.

The constant poaching of our elected representatives by the TMC has weakened our party and has paved the way for the BJP in Bengal, Chowdhury said.

"The TMC is not serious about fighting the BJP. Both the parties have a tacit understanding," he alleged.

Chowdhury also mocked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her surprise visit to a college and alleged the state government had completely failed to curb irregularities in admissions.

"The chief minister's visit to a college to inquire about irregularities is just an eyewash. What were police and the education department doing for all these days? Students have to give money to leaders of TMCP union to get admission to colleges. The TMC leadership wants us to believe that they were unaware of it," he said.

The TMC government and the party had become synonymous with corruption and extortion and even students were not spared, he alleged.

The state unit of Chatra Parishad -the student's wing of the Congress today organized a protest rally against the irregularities in the admission process in various colleges of the state.

Banerjee today paid a surprise visit to Ashutosh College in south Kolkata and warned of stern action against those who were indulging in irregularities during the admission process of colleges.

State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee also visited two colleges in the northern part of the city - Jaipuria College and Maharaja Manindra Chandra college - and spoke to the students about the problems they are facing.