No Mamata-Mao nexus, says PC

KOLKATA: Home minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday defended his Cabinet colleague and railway minister Mamata Banerjee who is being accused by the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of colluding with Maoists. Mr Bhattacharjee was beside the Union home minister when he gave a clean chit to Ms Mamata Banerjee by virtually refuting the West Bengal chief minister’s allegation about Mamata’s links with Maoists. “No political party in India which believes in parliamentary democracy can collude with Maoists,” Mr Chidambaram said when asked to react on Mr Bhattacharjee’s allegation about Mamata-Maoist nexus. Mr Bhattacharjee, however, did not make any effort to justify his claim that Mamata and Maoists were hand in glove.

Mr Chidambaram was holding a press conference after his high-voltage meeting with the four chief ministers of the Maoist-infested states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

Mr Chidambaram informed that Ms Banerjee had raised some issues about the joint operations against Maoists in West Bengal. “Mamata told me that anti-Maoists operations in West Bengal were not yielding any results. She has a point of view and I have taken a note of that.”