Shah, Mamata only posing as opponents: CPI(M)

Kolkata: Alleging that Amit Shah and Mamata Banerjee, top leaders of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, were only posing as opponents, the CPI(M) on Wednesday claimed that the two parties have a tacit understanding. The TMC, the ruling party of West Bengal, had also helped the saffron party candidates win Lok Sabha seats in the state, the Left party alleged.

Addressing a big rally here to launch the BJP's Lok Sabha campaign, the Union Home Minister launched a blistering attack on Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister and the TMC supremo, on issues of appeasement, infiltration, corruption and political violence. "Amit Shah and Mamata Banerjee are only posing as opponents," CPI(M) West Bengal secretary Mohd Salim said addressing a press conference here. The CPI(M) leader said that stopping infiltration is the job of the Home Ministry and it has failed to do so.

Banerjee has been opposing the CAA due to her support for infiltration, Shah asserted at the rally, adding that a state with so much infiltration cannot develop. Salim alleged that the TMC and the BJP are afraid of the Left in Bengal, which he claimed is rising once again. Left parties have no members in the current state assembly. Demanding that the Census be held immediately in the country, he wondered why it was not held in 2021 when it should have been done. "We want the caste census to be held also along with the Census," he said.

Alleging that investigations by central agencies into various corruption cases in the state were heading nowhere, the CPI(M) leader asked why the Centre did not call for utilisation certificates for funds provided to the state under schemes like the MGNREGA earlier as is mandatory every six months. The TMC has been demanding release of wages to workers of the 100-day job guarantee scheme under MNREGA, which it claimed was withheld by the Centre. Shah cited figures to assert that the Centre's funding for the state through various schemes has risen many times under the BJP than the Congress-led