After the letter controversy, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for the first time in a public meeting criticised Union home minister P. Chidambaram. Addressing a public rally of the Left Front at Dhulagarh in Howrah on Sunday, the chief minister asked Mr Chidambaram: “Why being a learned person, you have used a nasty word (harmad bahini) coined by the Trinamul Congress to describe the CPI(M) workers but remained silent on the Trinamul-Maoist links.”
The chief minister’s response made it clear that there will no new year’s truce in the war that is being fought publicly and bitterly between him and the Union home minister. Continuing his tirade against Mr Chidambaram, the chief minister reiterated his stand: “I am unable to accept your attitude towards Left Front workers....why you have chosen not to mention the Trinamul-Maoist links in your letters.”
Mr Bhattacharjee said harmad was a derogatory term used by the Left’s political rival, Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, and that the Union home minister’s reference to it suggested that Mr Chidambaram was pandering to Ms Banerjee’s anti-Left agenda. Ms Banerjee who is a crucial part of the UPA alliance at the Centre, has been targeting the Left aggressively for allegedly allowing its armed cadres to kill Trinamul Congress workers. With elections in Bengal just months away, the parties are launching campaigns with gusto and a glut of accusations against each other. Taking a dig at Ms Banerjee, the chief minister said: “She is lying. Industry cannot be set up by lying. It does not require hard work to lie but it needs hard work to set up industry.” Charging the Trinamul Congress for opposing industry, he added: “It will not deter us. We will not stop the drive for setting up more industries.”