Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that a “politically bankrupt” CPI(M) was mounting attacks on her party candidates and workers.
“Fearing defeat at the hustings, the CPI(M) has been creating terror in the state. My appeal to all Trinamul workers is to maintain cool and lodge protest politically,” Ms Banerjee said in an SMS message.
Asking party workers not to be provoked by CPI(M)’s “violent instigation”, she said, “People will give a fitting reply to the CPI(M) in the coming elections.”
Ms Banerjee’s appeal comes a day after she led a padayatra of thousands of people at the CPI(M) stronghold of Jamuria in Burdwan district where Rabin Kazi, a Trinamul minority cell leader, was crushed to death under the wheels of a car by alleged coal mafia on Monday. The attackers also assaulted Trinamul Congress candidate for the Jamuria Assembly constituency, whom Kazi tried to save, while he was returning after campaigning for the state Assembly elections at Barui village.
The Trinamul supremo earlier at a rally claimed that the violence was a result of panic within the CPI(M) leadership.
“How brutal can people be to deliberately crush somebody under the wheels of a car?” she said. An assistant sub-inspector of police Asit Mandal was suspended in connection with the killing and departmental proceedings were drawn up against him.
Meanwhile, a Trinamul Congress leader said that West Bengal Chief Minister and other senior ministers were campaigning only in their own constituencies as the party had lost political ground.
“Buddhadebbabu, Goutambabu and his comrades are in such a state of panic about their fate in the West Bengal Assembly elections that they are campaigning only in their own constituencies instead of electioneering statewide,” Trinamul Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said here.
He alleged that the Left Front government had failed in its over three decade tenure in the state. —PTI