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EC was purchased, it has to go: Mamata
Subrata Nagchoudhury
Kolkata,
May 14: After more than 40 hours of self-imposed confinement,
Mamata Banerjee emerged today to name the usual suspects in her
party’s defeat at the hands of the CPI(M): The Left Front,
whose ‘victory of violence’ she pledged to avenge, and
the Election Commission, whom she accused of having been ‘purchased’.
‘‘In Bengal, it has not been a people’s verdict’’,
she said.
Speaking to the Press at her Harish Chatterjeee Street house, Mamata
showed no remorse or self-criticism for the poor showing. Instead,
she vowed to reply to the Left with the same "democratic dawai
(medicine) with which they have retained power in Bengal.’’
It was virtually a call for politics of confrontation and all-out
aggresion against the "black sheep of democracy" (the
CPI(M)). "The CPI(M) has become Hitler’s party and we
will teach them a lesson inside the House," she said.
Asked if there was any organizational weakness within the Trinamool
Congress that might partly explain such a humiliating defeat, she
emphatically said: "Of course not. It was state-sponsored terrorism,
a matter of shame for democracy." She pointed out the margin
of defeats in Keshpur, Garbeta and some other constituencies in
Midnapore which ranged from 70,000 to over 100,000 and asked how
could one accept this as a true reflection of the people’s
vote?
It was evident that she has not been able to accept the defeat.
All other states that went to the polls saw a change in government,
she said. "How do you explain that? Why has the outcome not
reflected any anti-incumbency factor?’’, she asked rhetorically.
Answers: The polls have been rigged; the Chief Minister himself
encouraged rigging in his constituency of Jadavpur, she alleged.
Over 100 EVMs were defunct and the Trinamool Congress’s request
to the EC for repoll in more than 3,000 polling booths across the
state fell on deaf ears, she pointed out.
The Election Commission and the NDA government came in for a barrage
of venom. There must have been a deal, she said. “He (CEC MS
Gill) is retiring in May or June and he must been offered something.
When the polls were being held in Bengal he was away in Bihar,”
Banerjee said. ‘‘The EC has to go.”
Mamata also ruled out the possibility of the Trinamool joining the
NDA once again. “The Trinamool-Congress alliance will continue,”
she said.
When the issue of her resignation from the party post came up, she
said it was in accordance with democratic norms; she wanted to resign
owning moral responsibility for the defeat. “But I don’t
know what the policy-making body of our party has decided,”
she said.
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