Mamata Banerjee threatens agitation; demands withdrawal of joint forces

Trinamool Congress chief and railway minister Mamata Banerjee issued an ultimatum to the Union government on Wednesday to immediately recall the combined forces engaged in anti-Maoist operations in West Bengal. She threatened protests in New Delhi and Bengal from Thursday if her demand was not met.
Subhendu Adhikari, the Trinamool MP from Tamluk who led the bloody anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram, will lead the protests, Mamata announced at a public rally in Midnapore in the Maoist-dominated West Midnapore district.
Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was undeterred. He, in fact, upped the ante by saying anti-Maoist operations would be strengthened in the coming days.
“We cannot allow Maoists to become a threat to the state’s industrial development. Maoists will be countered in the same manner as Naxalites were in the seventies. Political and security movements against them will run parallel,” he said.
At the rally, Mamata alleged that the state and central security forces were helping armed CPI(M) goons to capture villages in West Midnapore district.
“CPI(M) goons are running several armed camps in West Midnapore and the combined forces are providing them a security cover. Sometimes, the combined forces torture villagers. This cannot continue and Trinamool is determined to oppose and resist it,” she said.
Mamata also alleged that the fear of a washout in the assembly polls next year had prompted the CPI(M) goons to unleash terror. “But the public can no more be terrorised. CPI(M)’s total defeat in the 2011 state assembly elections will start in West Midnapore and Trinamool will emerge the victor in all assembly constituencies of the district,” she said.
Mamata promised to withdraw all cases filed by the combined forces against people of the region once Trinamool comes to power.