New Delhi, The achievements of the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal on Thursday came in for question with key ally Congress asking it to "talk less and work more", saying it was not known as to which of the promises had been implemented by it so far. "Till now, we don't know which project has been converted into ground reality because things are at promise and announcement level only. A large number of farmers have been committing suicide in West Bengal and unemployment is also on the rise. I want to say that they should talk less and work more," Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told reporters here. He was asked to comment on the performance of the state government on completion of one year next week. Reacting to the comments of Chowdhury, Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said, "I do not know who has said this but we don't rate any Tom, Dick and Harry to comment on our leader because Mamata Banerjee is beyond criticism of these small fries who can't even prove themselves during elections." ,Dastidar said the mismanagement of the Congress in addressing the Air India issue could be seen by everyone. "Pilots are going on strikes. Some are ...
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Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee today accused the Centre of not helping her government at all to overcome its financial crisis. "The biggest hurdle being faced by us is that the UPA government, which we are supporting, has not at all helped us though we have been repeatedly telling them for the last one year and despite giving a commitment before the assembly elections," Banerjee told PTI at the Writers Building, the state secretariat, here. "We are waiting ... eagerly waiting to get a reply from the Centre," Banerjee who had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on May four and sought a three-year moratorium on central loan interest repayment, said. While accusing the Centre of not helping her government financially, she said "the Centre directly or indirectly helped the previous Left Front government a lot. I am not against that. You can help all state governments. "But why did they allow the Left Front government to borrow funds? Without their permission, they could not have done so. It is their (Centre's) fault also," she said. Questioning why the Centre did not force the ersthwhile Left Front government to introduce Fiscal Responsibility ...
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New Delhi, Slamming the Centre for taking a unilateral decision on formation of NCTC, key UPA ally and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said such institutions "upset" the federal structure of the country and was "not acceptable" to the state. She said setting up of institutions like National Counter Terrorism Centre with the proposed powers of arrest and seizure upsets the federal structure of the country and strongly urged the central government to withdraw order on its formation. "It is unfortunate that in utter disregard to these federal principles, the NCTC was set up by an executive order dated February 3, 2012 of the Union home ministry without adequate consultations with the states. "These kind of unilateral steps of the Union Government in matters which fall within the jurisdictions of the States only increases the trust-deficit between the Centre and States," Mamata said in a especially convened meeting of chief ministers on the constitution of NCTC here. The Centre's decision of creating NCTC has caused clamour among many State Governments including West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Odisha among others strongly ...
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New Delhi, The UPA leadership was aggressively wooing West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday in order to sew up her support for the presidential elections, and shut any opening for the BJP to cause trouble in the looming political contest. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi went into a huddle with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee over ways to meet Banerjee's demand for a moratorium on interest payments on central loans. Although rules prohibit such a concession to an individual state, finance ministry officials are expected to show ingenuity to come up with a device to get around the problem in concert with West Bengal officials who are in the Capital along with their CM. Banerjee, who discussed presidential polls with the Congress chief, was keeping her cards close to her chest, maintaining that it was the Congress which had to decide the nominee and that she did not believe in interfering with others' businesses. Talking to reporters in Parliament, the CM said that while she would like the president to be chosen by consensus, a contest, in case it became unavoidable, would not trouble her either. "A consensus is desirable, but ...
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New Delhi, With the presidential polls coming up in July, Congress is having to keep UPA allies like the Trinamool Congress in good humour. TMC chief Mamata Banerjee too has decided not to go in for confrontation with Congress at the moment, it seems. As a result, the Congress high command has decided to put on hold the appointment of a new PCC chief in West Bengal till the presidential polls get over. This has been communicated to a senior Congress leader from the state who was here last week and met both Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi. The Bengal Congress unit has been waiting for a new chief since Pradeep Bhattacharya was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. But the party in Bengal needs a full-time president to deal combatively with TMC. Even while TMC and Congress are coalition partners in the state, the relations between the so-called allies have only deteriorated in the last year since they overthrew Left Front and came to office last May. For Congress, it is a battle for survival against the growing strength of TMC in the state. TMC, on the other hand, has been trying to wipe out Congress from Bengal and take up the entire ...
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Kolkata, Amidst criticism of reported exclusion of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels from the history syllabus of higher secondary text books in West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said her government did not consider Marx or Lenin as "untouchables". "We do never consider Karl Marx or Lenin untouchables," the chief minister said after unveiling an oil painting of former chief minister late P C Sen at assembly lobby here. Stating that she salutes the nationalist movement as well as the Left movement in India, Banerjee said "there should be one's personal likes or dislikes but we cannot discard one while expressing our likes for another." The chief minister's remarks came amidst recommendations made by a syllabus reforms committee for excluding Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, founders of Marxism, from the history syllabus of the higher secondary text books. Criticising the previous Left Front government for creating a division in the people as 'us and them', Banerjee said her government felt proud in paying homage to the distinguished and celebrated personalities. The reported move by the Mamata Banerjee government to remove Marx and Engels from revised ...
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New Delhi, Japan would provide a soft loan of Rs 8317.15 crore to India for the third phase of Delhi Metro and project related to conservation of forests and biodiversity in West Bengal. India and Japan today signed an agreement in this regard here. "The soft loan would be extended by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the official donor agency of Japan government," a statement from JICA said. The loan agreement was signed by Chief Representative of JICA Shinichi Yamanaka and Joint Secretary , Department of Economic Affairs, Finance Ministry Prabodh Saxena. Out of the total loan, the Delhi Metro would receive Rs 7,922 crore for its phase three of Delhi Mass Rapid Transport System Project while forest and biodiversity conservation project in West Bengal would be provided Rs 394 crore. The Delhi Metro's phase three will add 103 km route in metro network. The loan funds would be allocated for civil works, electrical and communication-related construction, rolling stock procurement and consulting services. Under the forest and biodiversity conservation project in West Bengal, forest management would be strengthened through joint forest management ...
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Kolkata, Although she felt "betrayed" by the Congress leadership many a time, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee describes the late Rajiv Gandhi as "the leader of our hearts" and Pranab Mukherjee as her brother. Recalling her days in the Congress when she was attacked by alleged CPI(M) activists at a rally in 1991 in Kolkata, she says, "Rajiv ji, the leader of our hearts, took up the responsibility of paying for my treatment. He sent people to ask if I wanted to go to the US for further treatment". Even as Banerjee's current relationship with ally Congress has turned sour, she treats Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee as her elder brother. "I have always respected him and my relationship with him is that of an elder brother and his kid sister," she says recalling that when Mukherjee was once sacked by the party and formed the Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress in 1986, she had repeatedly requested Gandhi to take him back into the party fold. In her autobiographical account in the recently published book 'My Unforgettable Memories', she says that on hearing the news of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991 she was so shattered that she could neither eat nor speak ...
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Panaji, Jan 11 : The famed moodswings of Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and her partymen against the ruling Congress party seem to have got into a domino mode, spreading from Delhi to West Bengal to Goa. Less than a week after he was appointed state president by the Trinamool, Wilfred de Souza has called the ruling Congress-led alliance in Goa "corrupt, ineffective and lacking in ideas" and said his party would take the Congress head on during the Goa assembly polls March 3. "Goa needs a clean party; the Congress is corrupt and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is communal, whereas the local parties did not have any standing. So Goans did not have any viable third alternative. Now they have one," de Souza said even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has dared the Congress to leave their alliance government in her state. In Goa's political circles, the octogenarian de Souza, a renowned surgeon, is known to match up to Banerjee when it comes to temperament. He is seen to have orchestrated coups in the past which have dropped governments and occasions, propped some. "He has changed the political course of Goa several times around in the last ...
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New Delhi, Targeting the strained relations of the Congress party with its chief ally the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley has said that the UPA Government was searching for a new ally. "Congress is not sure about its alliance of West Bengal (TMC), so they have decided to use the assembly polls of Uttar Pradesh to find a new alliance partner. The central government is playing mean politics it is not sure about its alliance with one partner then they begin the search of another partner," Jaitley told the media here. The alliance of the TMC and the Congress had run into trouble on several issues like the passage of bill for the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the domestic retail market and the Lokpal Bill. Strains were visible during the parliamentary debate on the anti-graft Lokpal Bill , when TMC did a volte-face and opposed certain provisions in the government-draft of the legislation. Despite several attempts by the government, the TMC has so far refused to budge from its stand on the issue, leaving the Congress party unhappy. The TMC and Congress have voiced their differences on several platforms in the recent past on ...
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New Delhi, The Congress Sunday brushed off reports about cracks in the ruling UPA coalition, saying "too much" should not be read into the angry outburst of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee."I don't think we should read too much into these things...We all understand her (Banerjee's) concerns and I'm sure she understands our compulsions. I think there is a need for better communication," Law Minister and senior party leader Salman Khurshid told NDTV, a day after the Trinamool Congress chief challenged the Congress to walk out of the coalition government in West Bengal. Khurshid blamed the bickering between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) partners on "mismatch in expectations and responses". Banerjee's Trinamool is mainly responsible for blocking some key government policies and bills, including foreign direct investment in retail and the anti-graft Lokpal law. "I'm sure Mamataji also has expectations of people who voted for her and change in the ruling establishment of West Bengal after such a long time. But again, we are a national party and we have a lot of expectations that go beyond the concerns of only one state. So, there will sometimes be a ...
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