Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “owed an explanation” on Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Maoist-backed rally in Lalgarh.
The Marxists also accused Banerjee of “finding a way into a nursing home” whenever she is in a political tight-spot.

CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury, speaking to reporters outside parliament, accused the government of deliberately avoiding an answer on the “political collaboration of Trinamool Congress with Maoists”.

He said the government was avoiding a straight-forward answer to the “joint political rally” of Banerjee in Lalgarh Monday with Maoists.

“The prime minister needs to answer. He owes an explanation to the people,” Yechury said.

Referring to the government’s dependence on Trinamool Congress support for its survival, Yechury said the “political opportunism” of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was “compromising the fundamental interests of the country”.

“She (Banerjee) has not been attending parliament for the last three days as she is not well. We wish her speedy recovery. Let her come back to explain (her remarks). Whenever in a political tight-spot, she finds a way into a nursing home,” Yechury said.

Yechury said the pro-Maoist People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), which had been described by union Home Minister P. Chidambaram as a front organisation of the Maoists, had extended support to the Lalgarh rally.

He also said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the May 28 Gyaneshwari Express train tragedy in which 148 people were killed, has arrested PCPA activists for causing the derailment.

He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on several occasions described the Maoist problem as the single most important internal security challenge but a minister of his team had terming the killing of a Maoist leader as a “murder” in a staged shootout.

CPI-M leader Basudeb Acharia said that the rally was held by Banerjee at a time when Maoists were getting marginalised by the security forces. “It was organised to provide them oxygen,” he said.

At the Lalgarh rally, Banerjee slammed the killing of Maoist spokesperson Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad in a shootout in Andhra Pradesh July 2, suggesting it was a staged shootout.