19 Apr : There was "no difference" between Congress and Trinamool Congress and people of West Bengal want the two-party alliance to defeat Left Front, senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee said at an election rally in Cooch Behar when, for the first time, he shared dias with Mamata Banerjee.
"We are fighting jointly the Left Front to bring an end to the misrule of the Marxists in West Bengal and Mamata’s speech is my speech," the External Affairs Minister told the rally at Rass Mela Maidan in Cooch Behar while canvassing for TC candidate Arghya Roy Pradhan.
West Bengal is going backward in all sectors under the Left Front rule.The Left Front government failed to arrange jobs for even 37 days out of 100 days for the jobless people under the Centrally-sponsored NREGS scheme, Mukherjee charged.
"Gorkhaland was no more an issue of the West Bengal alone. Every effort would be made to stop the division of Bengal," he promised.Mamata Banerjee also said in her address that they would not allow Bengal to be divided any more.
She alleged that the Left Front government did nothing in north Bengal during the 32 years of its rule."The secessionist forces like KLO and Greater Cooch Behar movement are conspiracies hatched by the CPI-M as it had done during previous elections.
The Forward Bloc is also acting as a tail of the CPI-M," she alleged.Erstwhile allies Congress and Trinamool Congress had entered into a seat-sharing pact in West Bengal for the Lok Sabha election.