Trinamool Congress to step up demand for early assembly elections

The Trinamool Congress will step up its demand for early assembly elections in West Bengal, where no governance worth the name existed, party chief Mamata Banerjee has said.

"Every day I will keep demanding early assembly polls in the state. If there was governance in West Bengal, I had nothing to say. Now there is no governance in West Bengal," Banerjee told a Bengali TV channel last night.

However, making it clear that she was not demanding application of Article 356 in the state, the TC leader reiterated that elections in West Bengal could be held along with the assembly polls in Bihar in October.

Claiming that the longer the ruling Left Front clung to power the more ruin the state faced at its hands, she said, "People have given their verdict on Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee government."

She said the verdict was reflected in the losses suffered by the Left Front in the Lok Sabha polls, 10 assembly bypolls and now the civic polls.

In an apparent dig at the state Congress leaders whom she has blamed for the failure of seat-sharing talks for the civic polls, she said the civic poll was unique as there was a "combination between the Congress, BJP and the CPI(M) (to defeat the Trinamool Congress)."

She formed the Trinamool Congress, she said, in January 1998 after she was prevented from launching agitations against the CPI(M) by the then Congress leadership.   

Banerjee, however, praised late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi for his support to her struggle against the CPI(M) saying, "He personally liked me."