Buddhadeb 'both a Marxist and a Maoist': Mamata

KOLKATA: Countering the CPM's allegation of her party's truck with the Maoists, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today said the Maoists and the Marxists are both sides of the same coin.

"I think that the Marxists and the Maoists are both sides of the same coin. They are working together," Banerjee told newspersons here.

Alleging that the CPM was running the government with the help of the Maoists, she said there was no difference between the violent activities of the Maoists and Marxists.

"If Maoists are to be banned, why not the CPM which is also carrying out armed operations in the state?"

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had appealed to the Trinamool Congress yesterday to "severe links with the rebels".

Describing Bhattacharjee as "both a Marxist and Maoist with a double face," Banerjee accused him of inaction in tracing the missing policemen Sabir Ali Molla and Kanchan Gorai reportedly kidnapped by Maoists on July 30.

"The Union Home Minister had said that the Centre is willing to help in the search of these two policemen. I want to know why they are not being looked for even after this. Does not the Chief Minister have the responsibility to look for them?" she said.

She claimed the state government was using CPM cadre to carry out armed operations against opposition leaders and workers. 69 Trinamool supporters have been killed by CPM activists over the past few months.

Banerjee said she had handed over evidence regarding the killing of Trinamool men to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.

She also gave a list of 14 Trinamool activists who remained untraced in Nandigarm and its vicinity during the anti-land acquisition campaign there. Banerjee said according to locals, they had been killed by CPM cadre and their bodies thrown in the Haldi river.

The Railway Minister also accused the CPM of amassing huge sums of unaccounted money, and said this will come to light once the Centre takes the move to unearth black money stashed in Swiss banks.

Banerjee said the government was not "doing its duty" in checking the spiralling price rise. "Potato is selling at Rs 30 a kilo. But farmers are not getting a fair price."

She said although the PDS is in the hand of the state government, it was not doing anything to ensure supply of essentials and thereby stabilise their prices.