Don't need lessons in democracy from Trinamool: Left

The Left Front Thursday hit back at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for criticising the opposition's decision to boycott the ongoing assembly platinum jubilee celebrations.

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress chief, Wednesday called the opposition "discourteous" after the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and the Congress boycotted the closing ceremony of the celebrations.

They accused the ruling party of "misbehaviour with opposition members inside the assembly as well (of) its effort to destroy the democratic set-up in the state".

"We don't need to learn lessons from someone who once laid siege to the state secretariat or whose legislators vandalised the assembly. Instead of pointing fingers at others, she should look at her own party," Leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra told media persons here.

Mishra was referring to 1993 incident when Banerjee, then a Congress leader, led a sit-in demonstration in front of the chief minister's office demanding action in the rape of a physically challenged girl and the 2006 vandalism of the assembly by Trinamool legislators.

"She (Banerjee) says assembly is not the place for politics, then which is the place... the administration? Which her party has politicised to suit its own interests?" said Mishra.

He accused the state government of allowing scams to happen as also shielding those involved in them.

"We have seen the Saradha chit fund scam, the biggest financial scandal to hit the state ever. One after the other we have seen how scams have been unfolding, the latest being the irregularities in the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA)," said Mishra.

"The state government is busy trying to shield the perpetrators of SJDA," he alleged.