West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today berated CPI(M) veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for suggesting that the Trinamool Congress would resort to terror in the Lok Sabha election.
Without naming Bhattacharjee, the chief minister said that the man who had presided over "a demonic and inhuman" government for 34 years had forfeited the right to say this.
Bhattacharjee, the former West Bengal chief minister, yesterday said at a party rally at Belgatchia in north Kolkata that "TMC had resorted to violence at the panchayat election" and would also adopt similar tactic to intimidate the voters in the Lok Sabha polls.
Banerjee castigated the erstwhile Left Front government for the "terror" unleashed by them at Nandigram village, where "mass killings" took place, and at Netai village where nine people lost their lives.
"People have seen goondasim in the 34-year rule of the LF government. Have they forgotten that during the Nandigram violence people were killed and thrown into the river? Many people are still missing and their wives are still hoping that their husbands will return home," she told reporters gathered at the NSC Bose international airport.
She also referred to the killing of Ananda Margis and those at Sainbari.
"The past is so horrible -- so many people have been suppressed, killed and tortured in Bengal. Now people of Bengal are liberated and democracy has been restored," Banerjee said.
She said that peace prevailed in Jangalmahal, the erstwhile hotbed of the Maoists, and in the Darjeeling hills which was wracked by GJM-sponsored violence.
She also reiterated her charge of the financial miseries brought by the previous government by way of a huge debt burden.
"The Centre did not provide any help to us in tiding over the debt problem. It had allowed the L F government to take loans at random amounting to thousands of crores of rupees.
"We are maintaining fiscal discipline and that is not our crime. We will not bow (before the Centre) despite the difficult situation we are facing in managing the finances," the chief minister said.
Trinamool Congress had swept the panchayat polls held in July winning 13 of the 17 Zilla Parishads inflicting a crushing defeat on the Left Front and the Congress.
