Congress accuses Mamata Banerjee of helping 'fascist' forces, political opportunism

Mamata Banerjee is strengthening the "fascist" forces by "sheer political opportunism", Congress said on Thursday, a day after the West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo said that there is "no UPA".

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala alleged that Mamata was doing the same as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing -- buying legislators and breaking parties.

"You cannot by sheer political opportunism proceed to strengthen the very fascist forces, represented by the RSS and the BJP, that you are pretending to fight...Political opportunism may be good for some people or parties, but for us Indianness and our country, democracy and brotherhood, and our compassion and article of faith are the ones on which the Congress has never compromised," Surjewala told reporters.

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He accused Mamata of speaking different languages at different times, and recalled that she had sided with both the NDA and UPA by switching sides several times.

"For her it can be political expediency, but for us fighting the BJP and the RSS is close to us," he said even as he recalled her statement during an all-party meeting by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on August 20 that all political forces have to come together to save democracy in the country.

Sources said Mamata told NCP chief Sharad Pawar, whom she met in Mumbai on Wednesday, that there was a need to think beyond Congress, as it has "considerably weakened".

She was of the view that the action-plan or coming together of parties should be planned well in advance and not wait till the Lok Sabha poll is announced, sources said. Mamata wants the narrative to be set in and sees herself as the face of this group, sources said adding that with age not on side, Pawar would opt out as the face but Mamata wants him to be the patriarchal face of the grouping.

Trinamool Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O'Brien defended his party chief saying "there has been no UPA for the past 10 years". "It is totally factual, we are not here to defend that. She made a statement," he said.

He said the UPA was formed for governance, there was a "clear purpose" to set up the UPA post elections and that was for better governance, which continued till 2014.

"In fact, not only in the last one year, for the last 10 years there has been no UPA. The governance has been done by some other political party. That is the meaning of what was said yesterday," he said.

"The Congress had nearly 150 MPs back then, now they have 50. The Left Front had 62 seats back then and now they have six. The RJD had 25 seats, now they have zero -- the dynamics have changed. The AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) has only one focus, which is to uproot the BJP from the states and the Centre," he added.

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