Not fair Mamata, return CPM's slogans!

Kolkata: Left Front chairman Biman Bose today accused the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal of hijacking issues raised by the Left and to be more Left than the Leftists. “Trinamool Congress is trying to hijack our issues and using slogans given by us. They are trying to be more Left than the Leftists,” Bose told a Left rally here. “Of late, Trinamool Congress is talking about people’s interest on FDI in multi-brand retail, but the Left parties have been opposing it from the beginning when it was mooted in 2005,” Bose said. [caption id=“attachment_471220” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mamata Banerjee.[/caption] Accusing the Trinamool Congress, which has quit the UPA government in protest against FDI in multi-brand retail, of trying to mislead the people, he alleged “US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell had secret discussions with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday, earlier US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also held a meeting with her. “What transpired in these meetings were not made public,” he said. “Why should she meet Powell who is representing the imperialists. They (TMC) are trying to mislead the people,” he alleged while claiming that the Left parties were the only true friends of the poor. Accusing the Trinamool Congress government of centralising power and trying to make the panchayat raj system defunct, the LF chairman said “the government is using BDOs and SDOs bypassing elected panchayats in development work. It is bringing back bureaucracyraj, which was largely done away with by the previous Left Front government.” Leader of the Opposition Suryakanta Mishra, accused the government of giving powers to officials and making local self governments non-functional. Mishra, a former state panchayati raj minister admitted that there were some faults and defects in their working. “But overall we tried to give good governance at the local level. “We had decentralised power from Writers Building to the villages through panchayats, but this government is trying to centralise power,” he said. PTI