Basu threatened with Central rule

Alleging that by the dint of `a brute majority’ and with the help of successive Central Governments, the CPI(M)-led Left Front had `destroyed’ the democratic institutions of the state, Mamata said that imposition of Central rule was the only answer to all this.

“If you don’t listen to the voice of the people who suffered at your hands, you will invite Article 356,” Mamata said. She further accused the state government of using the `politicised state police’ to muffle the rights of the Opposition.

TheTC leader also said that her charges of a secret deal between the Congress and Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had been proved right by Basu’s open offer to support a Congress-led government at the Centre.

The rally an annual affair was organised in memory of 13 Youth Congress workers who died in a police firing this day in 1993 during a `March to State Secretariat’ programme, when Banerjee was the state Youth Congress chief.

Today’s rally, attended by all seven TC MPs and former state BJP president Vishnu Kant Shastri, turned out to be a major post-election public meeting for the allies.

Earlier, Tapan Sikdar, who spoke as a guest in the rally, also threatened the LF Government with Article 356, if the CPI(M) continued with “political murders, rape and barbaric muzzling of dissent”.

Sikdar, whose wordy duels with Mamata was the talk of the town once, was frank enough to admit that there had been problems earlier.

“But we have overcome all differences and pledge to take the fight against the CPI(M)to its logical conclusion,” he said.

Sikdar also justified the sending of a Central team and said that a larger team from the Centre would soon visit the state.

“If you again insult that team, get ready for the Central rule,” he cautioned.