Mamata demands withdrawal of joint forces from WB

Piling pressure on the Centre, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday threatened to take to the streets from Thursday to press for immediate withdrawal of joint forces from Maoist-hit areas in West Bengal.

Alleging that the joint forces were committing atrocities on innocent people and Trinamool Congress workers, Banerjee said she was demanding their immediate withdrawal.

"Our party MPs will launch a dharna outside Parliament House in support of the demand. I will take to the streets and give a call to the joint forces to quit Bengal," Banerjee told a rally at the college ground where Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had held a similar one last week.

"It has become a joint venture between the joint forces and West Bengal government in the name of joint operations against Maoists", she said.

Describing Communist Party of India - Marxist as 'politically bankrupt', she listed its alleged atrocities on political adversaries, particularly the Trinamool Congress, and claimed no development had taken place in the state in the last 33 years.

Cocking a snook at the chief minister's rally, she said, "I would like the CPI-M to come and see the turnout at my meeting."

Expressing apprehension that the police were 'plotting indiscriminate arrest' of Trinamool Congress workers in Jungalmahal, Banerjee alleged that the West Midnapore superintendent of police was helping CPI-M armed cadres in unleashing terror in villages. "But we will not bow our head to any pressure," she said.

Referring to the chief minister's statement at his rally that it remains to be seen who saves Trinamool Congress, Banerjee alleged that it amounted to a 'threat' to her life. "To say that he will see who saves whom is nothing short of holding out a threat to my life. This is a criminal case," Banerjee alleged and said she did not care about her life and does not live at the chief minister's mercy.

She wondered what the Centre would have thought "if Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had said it." Slamming the chief minister, she said "I believe in political battle, not in gun-battle".

"We are ready to give a fitting reply to your politics of violence and terror. My purpose is to establish peace in Junglemahal, which you could not. Your government was unable to provide food to the villagers of Jungalmahal who received only bullets," she declared.

"Yours is a government of harmards (armed CPI-M cadre), for the harmards and by the harmards," said the Trinamool chief.