KOLKATA, MAY 5

The Congress leadership today lambasted former party colleague Subrata Mukherjee as a person who lacked integrity. They said that the Congress has nothing to lose from the defection.

Mukherjee, former working president of the state Congress, formally joined the Trinamool Congress today. “The Congress does not give any importance to Mukherjee’s decision. He is a man who lacks integrity and political pedigree,” said Manas Bhuniya, Congress legislature party leader.

Bhuniya pointed out that Mukherjee was part of the Congress team which held meetings with Trinamool Congress regarding seat sharing that broke down recently.

“He is unnecessarily

accusing Congress leaders as the reason for the breach

of alliance in Bengal. He

was part of the team which held meetings not only

with Mamata Banerjee but other Trinamool leaders. When the talks broke down, he neither protested nor he was annoyed,” added Bhuniya.

Bhuniya stated that it was the high handedness of the Trinamool that led to the breach of the alliance in Bengal. “Trinamool was dictating terms, whereas the Congress was receptive during the seat-sharing talks. We tried hard to reason with Banerjee, even senior national leaders like Pranab Mukherjee and Keshab Rao tried hard. But Trinamool

was uncompromising,” added Bhuniya.

He said that since the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had made sacrifices for the Trinamool on a number of occasions. “It was because of our sacrifice that the Congress remained in six seats and Trinamool rose from 1 seat to 19,” Bhuniya added.

Bhuniya also lambasted a section of pro-Trinamool intellectuals who openly