Thaindian News

Kolkata, Sep 19 (IANS) In an apparent jibe at Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s recent visit to West Bengal, Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Sunday said she was neither a rarely seen flower nor one who sleeps on a bed of gold.
“‘Ami dumurer phool noi’ (I am not a rarely seen flower) that I will be seen once a year and then I will go. I stand by the people throughout the year. I share their pain and grief. I am with the people throughout the year,” said Banerjee without mentioning Gandhi and his three-day visit.

Gandhi, during his Sep 14-16 tour, undertaken to boost the Youth Congress and the party before next year’s assembly polls, said time and again that the Congress needed to be treated with respect by the Trinamool before the two parties join hands in the state.

The state Congressmen had been repeatedly complaining that they were not being treated with dignity by the Trinamool and Banerjee.

“I don’t belong to the group who sleep on a bed of gold and talk about people. I live a simple life, just like any other common person,” added Banerjee, while addressing a rally at Nanoor in Birbhum district.

Banerjee’s comments ahead of Gandhi’s three-day visit that she was not like a seasonal cuckoo had also been interpreted by analysts as a dig at Gandhi.

Gandhi’s decision to criss-cross the state to revive the Congress, which has yielded the space of the dominant opposition party to the Trinamool over the years, his harping on the respect factor and Banerjee’s potshots at him seem to be the two parties’ efforts to position themselves for hard bargain during the seat-sharing talks before the polls.

The two parties had come together before last year’s Lok Sabha polls to decimate the state’s ruling Left Front that has been in power since 1977.

But during the civic elections this year, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress failed to clinch a seat sharing deal and decided to go it alone.