In its report ‘TMC minister gave money to buy arms’, The Sunday Guardian said Shishir Adhikari confessed to having paid Rs1.2 lakh to a Trinamool leader for purchasing arms from Bangla dealer.
In another sign of their fast-deteriorating ties, the Congress has decided not to support Trinamool MP and Union minister of state for rural development Shishir Adhikari, who kicked up a storm recently by “confessing” his links with a “Bangladeshi arms dealer”.
In a report headlined ‘TMC minister gave money to buy arms’ in New Delhi-based newspaper The Sunday Guardian, Adhikari reportedly confessed to having paid Rs1.2 lakh to a local Trinamool leader for purchasing arms from a Bangladeshi dealer.
Highly placed sources in the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) told DNA on Tuesday that the matter pertaining to Adhikari was so touchy that any attempt to back Trinamool on the issue could cause major embarrassment to the Congress in parliament.
“Furthermore, the issue has the potential to unite the opposition. If we blindly back the Trinamool, chances are a united opposition might turn its guns on us in parliament,” an AICC leader said.
He said a majority of AICC members were of the opinion that the Congress should not openly back the Trinamool on the issue till Adhikari’s credibility is established.
“Our policy on this issue is wait and watch. We will neither defend the Trinamool minister nor officially agree with the allegations of the opposition,” the AICC leader.
AICC spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the Congress would move as per the law of the land on the Adhikari issue. “The law will take its own course. There is no question of defending anybody even if the person concerned belongs to a political ally,” he said.
Party sources said one of the main reasons for the tough stand was the constant abuses hurled by Trinamool leaders, especially party chief Mamata Banerjee, at the Congress after the breach of their alliance ahead of the forthcoming civic polls in West Bengal.
“Mamata Banerjee indirectly described the Congress as a CPI(M) pimp. She accused the Congress of conspiring with the CPI(M) to malign the Trinamool’s image on the Adhikari issue. Enough is enough,” the AICC leader said.
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