Adhir challenges Mamata to bring no-confidence motion

Shortly after he took oath as a Union Minister of State, Congress MP Adhir Chowdhury on Sunday fired a salvo at Mamata Banerjee, challenging her to bring a no-confidence motion against the central government.

"The winter session of Parliament is commencing from November 22. I will tell Mamata Banerjee that If she has guts, let her party bring a no-confidence motion in the House and see which party stands here. Congress is not afraid to face the election," Chowdhury said.

A Congress MP from Behrampore in Murshidabad district, Chowdhury, who has been inducted as MOS, Railways, said this when asked to comment on Mamata Banerjee's recent statement that the Manmohan Singh government would fall within six months. With no love lost between him and Mamata, Chowdhury quoting the Prime Minister said that elections would be held in due course as the mandate of the people was that UPA should complete its full five-year term.

Chowdhury, who singled out Mamata for criticism as a former Railway minister, said, "It will take a number of railway budgets to implement the series of announcments made by her during her tenure in the Railway ministry. "Everything was on paper. She has announced projects without making adequate monetary provisions. She was a failure as a railway minister," Chowdhury claimed.

Chowdhury said Bengal CM had herself allayed the fears about the fate of the ongoing railway projects in Bengal because of her anti-Centre posturing, saying she had thought about all that. The Planning Commission has already approved the plans for 14 railway factories that she proposed as the railway minister and funds have already been allocated, she herself had assured, Chowdhury pointed out.

In a federal structure, the Centre cannot do anything without co-operation of the state government, he pointed out and said he did not feel he and the other party leaders, including Deepa Dasmunshi, were made the Union ministers as a signal by the Congress high command to take the Trinamool Congress head-on. Pranab Mukherjee who has become the President was the lone Congress minister from West Bengal at the Centre till he moved to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"There was a vacuum after the Ministers belonging to the Trinamool Congress resigned. Moreover, three ministers of state were taken from the state to give a message that the Centre treat all the states alike though TMC has charged it with having a step-brotherly attitude towards West Bengal", he said. Reacting to Chowdhury's challenge to Mamata to bring a no-confidence motion against the UPA government, TMC leader Saugata Roy said, "Let me say Adhir Chowdhury is not the leader worthy to challenge Mamata Banerjee."

Stating that Congress's strength in Murshidabad district was declining fast as evident in the results in the recently held Jangipur parliamentary by-election, he said Chowdhury, who was the DCC president in Murshidabad, should set its own house in the district in order. President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee won the Jangipur Lok Sabha bypoll in Murshidabad district with a victory margin of only 2,536 votes.