Congress ignores Chakraborty's remark on Mamata

New Delhi: Under frequent attack from ally Mamata Banerjee, Congress today sought to ignore the remark of a sulking party Minister in West Bengal dubbing the chief minister as a “dictator” and his plea that he be allowed to quit her ministry. “The moment the Congress president, the high command will take a decision, we will let you know,” said party spokesman Rashid Alvi to a host of questions on the West Bengal Minister Manoj Chakraborty’s comments on the Trinamool Congress chief.[caption id=“attachment_186947” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Image courtesy PIB”] [/caption] Alvi’s refrain was that all issues could be sorted out through talks. The spokesman dismissed suggestions that Congress was clinging to power in West Bengal even when the chief minister was dismissing their criticism as “dogs bark when elephant walks”. “Congress has never clung to power. For us principles are important and not power which is only an instrument to implement its programme. When the Left withdraws support on the issue of the Nuclear deal, we stood by our principles,” he said. A senior party leader, who declined to be identified, insisted that in coalition, sometimes ministers of alliance parties, do criticise the chief minister or disobey the prime minister. Citing an instance, he recalled that Mukul Roy, a Union minister of the Trinamool Congress, had refused to obey Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s order to go to a site of railway accident last year. Besides, he said that when the BJP-led NDA was in power, it had to suffer a lot from a mercurial AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, whose party was part of the ruling alliance. On Tuesday as the West Bengal chief minister divested Chakraborty one of the two portfolios, Congress had sent out a message to her that the coalition dharma does not permit “unilateralism”. PTI