Trinamool, BJP in secret pact for LS polls: Buddha, TMC denies

CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today claimed that Trinamool Congress has secretly tied up with BJP for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but TMC rejected the remark saying it can win polls alone.
"There is a big fight in front of us. There is danger ahead. TMC has an understanding with Modi, but is not disclosing it. We won't allow BJP to set up a base in Bengal by holding TMC's hands," he said.
The former Chief Minister was addressing a CPI(M) rally in the erstwhile Marxist bastion of Hooghly district.
Countering his charge, TMC General Secretary Mukul Roy said the recent bypolls and Panchayat elections in Bengal have shows that his party can fight and win polls alone.

"After Mamata Banerjee's visit to Lalgrah in 2010, CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechury and BJP's Arun Jaitley had jointly protested her visit in Parliament, alleging that Mamata Banerjee had turned into a Maoist. Now, you are saying we are having a tie-up with BJP. People of Bengal are watching," Roy said at a rally in Hooghly town.
Bhattacharjee pointed out that TMC and BJP have been allies in the past and the biggest question now was whether Modi was eyeing the Bengal votebank through TMC.

"We have to be alert so that the coalition (BJP-TMC) doesn't enter Bengal. I know the people of Bengal will never allow that to happen," the CPI(M) Politburo member said.

Roy took a dig at TMC's erstwhile ally Congress with whom his party parted ways in 2012 over FDI in retail, saying the UPA was pursuing anti-people policies.
He also berated Bhattacharjee for his remark that the state government was not working properly and retorted that in the Left Front's 34-year-rule, everything from education and health to industry and agriculture was destroyed.
"When our government came to power, we inherited a huge debt. Besides, Darjeeling and Jangalmahal were burning. But now, the problems have been solved," he said.
Reiterating the state government's policy of no forced land acquisition, Roy said it was Bhattacharjee who had tried to snatch away land from poor farmers of Singur and Nandigram.