Fight against black money: Congress says no truck with TMC
Adhir Chowdhury said that the TMC had not moral right to speak against black money because her entire party was sitting on sacks of black money.
Congress West Bengal chief Adhir Chowdhury.
At a time when Chief Minister Mamata Banejree has given a clarion call to all opposition parties to join protest against the BJP on the Centre’s demonetisation move”, the state Congress leadership Monday questioned her party’s credibility and said there would be no joint movement with the Trinamool Congress.
“It is up to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) to decide on floor coordination with TMC at the Parliament. I, as the president of Bengal Congress, can tell that there is no question of joining hands with the TMC to protest against any issue here in state,” said state Congress chief Adhir Chowdhury.
He said that the TMC had not moral right to speak against black money because her entire party was sitting on sacks of black money.
“Only the saree that Mamata wears is white. Everything else about her is black. They have amassed huge amounts of black money through various illegal sources and now she is being the most vocal against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It shows her double standards,” Chowdhury said He also said that they were not against the objective of unearthing black money or stamping it out of the economy. “We are protesting against the inconveniences caused to the common man by the procedure that had been followed. The infrastructure was insufficient to carry out such demonetisation,” he added.
A few days back, Adhir had mocked the TMC’s “crusade” against demonetisation by saying those who lived in glass houses should not throw stones. “The top to bottom of the TMC is completely drenched in Saradha and Narada scams. We have seen how, on camera, TMC leaders were accepting money. They should not talk much about black money as they have entered into a political match-fixing with the BJP,” he had said.
Senior Congress leader Somen Mitra said, “We have seen news reports that the TMC wants the Congress and the other parties to fight together against the issue of demonetisation. But, It would be wrong to conclude that we need to share the dais with it because we both are opposing the issue.”
Mitra, a former state Congress chief, said, “First, the TMC needs to come clean on charges of corruption (against its leaders), then they can talk big about black money. She (Mamata) is talking about uniting the opposition against the BJP. But, in Bengal, her party is removing every sign of opposition by poaching on opposition MLAs and public representatives”.
At PCC headquarters, former state Congress president and party Rajya Sabha MP Pradeep Bhattacharya said they have written to AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi to lead a “serious and strong political movement” against the “disastrous” decision of the Modi government.
Bhattacharya said that it had been a futile attempt to curb black money. “Modi should name five persons who had been arrested and how much of the Rs 64,000 crore of black money which the BJP leaders had been talking about before election, have been recovered,” Bhattacharya said.
Earlier today, addressing a massive gathering at Textile More in Behrampore, Chowdhury said that the police and administration had been working with the TMC to force people from Congress to defect to the TMC. He also cited the example of Chauri Chaura incident and said, “A police station was burnt by angry crowd to protest against the British atrocity. The way police are behaving here, I cannot guarantee that there will not be a repetition of the incident here by the common people of Murshidabad.”
Talking about the defection of leaders to the TMC, party MLA Abdul Mannan who was also present at the public meeting, said, “They have deserted Congress after winning with the party’s symbol. They have betrayed the people,” Mannan said.
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