West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee slams Congress-Left 'rainbow coalition'

SUTI, WB: Upping the ante against Congress and the Left, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today claimed both the parties have formed a "rainbow coalition" for the upcoming Assembly election in the state as they could not fight Trinamool Congress alone and said the "people's alliance" would defeat them.

"We had stated long back that some Congress leaders handed over Congress flags to CPI(M). What we had stated then has proved to be true now. Earlier both parties had covert alliance. Now it is open," she said.

In some places Congress, CPI(M) and BJP formed "rainbow coalition to defeat TMC as they cannot fight us alone. All forces have come together to defeat us but they can't do anything as the people's alliance would defeat them," Trinamool Congress chief said during an election meeting here.

Referring to TMC's alliance with Congress in 2011 Assembly poll, Banerjee said, "We had adjustments with Congress but it had fielded independent candidates in many places to defeat us".

Yesterday, Banerjee said in neighbouring Malda district whether the grass root level workers of both Congress and CPI(M) would support the "unprincipled alliance" by the two parties is yet to be seen.

Stating that now time has come to strike back, she said, "We don't believe in terror and violence. We have done lots of development work and the people across party lines have benefited. What Congress and CPI(M) which had all its MLAs and MPs in Murshidabad and Malda for all these years, have done for the people", she asked.

She claimed that Congress leader late A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury had worked for Malda's development and he would not have approved this alliance.

Banerjee said that although TMC had ousted the Left in 2011 assembly election, the party did not do well in Murshidabad and Malda but now the situation has changed.

"If people think that TMC will get less number of seats in North Bengal, they would be proven wrong", she said.