Black money case: TMC to grill PM Modi government in Parliament

KOLKATA: Upping the ante against BJP, Trinamool Congress today said the party will grill the Modi government in Parliament during the budget session on its "failure" to fulfil its pre-poll promises like bringing back black money stashed abroad.

The party said it will also politically fight the Government over CBI quizzing TMC leaders in the multi-crore chit fund scam.

"We will grill Modi government in the budget session of Parliament on its failure to fulfil pre-poll promises which included bringing back black money and on the draconian land ordinance," TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien told reporters after a two-hour long party meeting to chalk out strategies for the budget session commencing on February 23 and some other issues.

The meeting was addressed by party chief Mamata Banerjee.

0'Brien said the party would also strongly take up the issue of bringing in electoral reforms.

On the CBI interrogation of TMC leaders, he said "Whether it is CBI or anythig else we will politically fight it."

Briefing reporters, TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee alleged that BJP, which did not have majority in Rajya Sabha, was arresting TMC MPs on various pretexts. A TMC delegation would meet RS chairman and vice-president Hamid Ansari on this issue.

TMC, he said, has been demanding electoral reforms since 1994-95 and it would strongly raise the demand in Parliament. Party MPs Saugata Roy and O'Brien have been entrusted with the job of taking initiatives to press for electoral reforms, he added.

Senior party leader Subrata Mukherjee said TMC was accepting the challenge of BJP. "We emerged victorious under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee in the past too".

He accused BJP of 'communal provocation' in the name of religious conversion and warned that this would not be tolerated.

"Our Constitution says that all religions should be treated equally", he said.

It was decided at the meeting that a booklet would be brought out by the party to counter the opposition campaign against the TMC government in the state, Chatterjee, also the state Education minister, said.

TMC MPs Sugato Bose, Saugata Roy, Debabrata Bandopadhyay, Anupam Hazra and state ministers Amit Mitra, Subrata Mukherjee and Partha Chatterjee would be the members of the committee to bring out the booklet, he added.