Thaindian News

Kolkata, Jan 4 (IANS) Expressing support to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress for defeating the Marxists in West Bengal, the Maoists have urged the railway minister to resign from the cabinet against price rise and “Operation Green Hunt”.In a statement, Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) leader Bikram cited the outfit’s “old links” with Banerjee and Trinamool, and said it had worked side by side with Trinamool during the peasant agitations in Singur and Nandigram, besides the rebel movement in Lalgarh.

“Our relationship was grounded in mass movement. The movements in Singur and Nandigram, the protest against corruption in public distribution and the Lalgarh agitation - we were together everywhere,” said Bikram, member of the CPI-Maoist’ Bengal-Jharkhand-Orissa regional committee and in-charge of West Bengal’s Purulia unit.

Claiming that Maoists have projected Banerjee as the “bourgeoisie alternative” to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), he said she has also “cooperated” with the Maoists in several issues.

These included the joint forces operation in Lalgarh and her protest against the death of Maoist leader Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, with whom behind-the-scnes peace parleys were going on, in a “staged shoot-out”.

“Due to our joint efforts, the demon called CPI-M is on the back foot in West Bengal … people want this … we also want to maintain and strengthen our relationship with Banerjee,” Bikram said.

However, Bikram claimed that Banerjee’s repeated wrong stands were benefiting the CPI-M. He claimed “corruption” in the rural councils and urban civic agencies run by Trinamool, and Banerjee sidestepping the series of scams the United Progressive Alliance government has got embroiled in were the impediments.

“If Banerjee does not clearly oppose ‘Operation Green Hunt’ and Operation Poor Hunt (price rise) and resign from the anti-people union government and sever links with the Congress, people will throw away Banerjee’s party,” Bikram said in the statement.