West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and his Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday hit back at Home Minister P Chidambaram, accusing him of being "partisan" with a motive to "please" Trinamool Congress and serve its "political interests".
The CPI-M ire against Chidambaram was fuelled by his letter to Bhattacharjee questioning the alleged role of armed CPI-M cadres in West Bengal and for his remarks on the law and order situation and further compounded by the "leak" of letter's contents to the media.
The CPI-M said the "leak" of Chidambaram's letter even before it reached the chief minister was "unthinkable" and it demanded an explanation from him.
CPI-M chief Prakash Karat also sought an explanation. Addressing a party rally at Dum Dum on the outskirts of Kolkata, Bhattacharje thundered he will give a "befitting" reply to the letter after saying he got it on Monday.
"It is appearing in papers that Chidambaram has written a letter. But where was that letter? It has already been published in papers. I received it only today. I will give a reply tomorrow. I will give a befitting reply. The letter was written to please Trinamool Congress," he said.
Charging that Trinamool has openly joined hands with Maoists in the state, Bhattacharjee said, "I will ask Chidambaram if he supports the Trinamool-Maoist morcha."
"The media is fully briefed about the letter even before the Chief Minister gets it. This shows that the purpose of the letter is to serve the political interests of the Trinamool Congress which is part of the Union government," the CPI-M politburo said in a statement in New Delhi.
Maintaining that the media was briefed about the contents of the letter on December 24, the party said, "This is a strange way of communication between the Union Home Minister and the chief minister of a state."
The CPI-M said that the Union home minister owed "an explanation for this partisan approach".
Bhattacharjee also expressed surprise at how the contents of the letter, which had asked the state government to disarm CPI-M cadres, were published in newspapers before it reached him, stopping short of directly blaming Chidambaram.
In his letter, Chidambaram has questioned the West Bengal government on its use of central forces in the state, saying the killing of activists of political parties point to a "virtual collapse" of law and order there.
His letter came in the wake of ally Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee alleging misuse of central security forces in the state and offering to quit if her charge was proved wrong.
CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose said "the way the letter, which has reached the state government after 11 o'clock today, has been leaked to media is unthinkable and uncalled for."
"It is wrong to leak the letter to the media. In this the political interests of the Trinamool Congress have been served," Bose, who is the Left Front chairman, said and called the letter 'motivated.'
