Left parties in Bengal slam Chidambaram

Home Minister P Chidambaram's comments about West Bengal's 'deteriorating' law and order and 'precarious' finances has drawn a sharp response from the Left parties with Front chairman Biman Bose describing the comments as mere 'election-oriented utterances' and asking him to answer for the 'worsening' law and order situation in Delhi.

"These were only election-oriented utterances by Chidambaram which were meant to boost the image of the Congress and the Trinamool Congress alliance," Bose, who is also a CPI-M politburo member, told a press conference along with leaders of other Left Front constituents.

Bose said in any case the Congress-Trinamool alliance was going to be defeated in the election.

CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta told PTI that Chidrambaram should look in the mirror and judge his own performance as the home minister of the country.

"The man who has failed to bring about peace in Kashmir, the man who failed to bring tranquillity in Manipur, the man who failed to miserably curb Maoist violence everywhere in the country, the man who has made the capital of India as paradise of criminality having the highest record of rape and abductions has no right to speak about the performance of West Bengal or any other country."

Dasgupta, leader of the CPI parliamentary party in Lok Sabha, said, "It is needless to add that because of his non-performance, he has been shifted from the finance ministry to the home ministry."

Bose also decried Chidambaram for describing the state's finances as 'precarious'.

"Is West Bengal the only state which is facing a debt burden? There are eight states which are facing a similar situation and why was West Bengal singled out? It is surprising that Chidambaram has not mentioned Maharahstra where his party is ruling and which has a high debt burden."

Chidambaram today told a press conference, "For the last two to four months I have been bringing to the notice of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and his colleagues that law and order is deteriorating."

Chidambaram said that since 2004 revenues of all states had increased and no state had to resort to overdraft for the last four to five years, the only exception being West Bengal.