Youth will capture Delhi too after an absolute control over Bengal: CM to TMCP members

She asked senior TMCP leaders to prepare a database of class representatives of all colleges in Bengal in a month and submit a list to her. “I will build the next generation of TMC with you. I will work on the data. I have also decided to start a programme, under which all TMCP leaders will write their suggestions and send it me. I want to know what are you thinking,” said Mamata.

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“People have not forgotten the horrors of CPM rule in Netai, Khejuri, Nandigram or Keshpur. We have to defeat CPM, BJP and Congress in the Assembly elections. We have to shatter them in every possible way. We cannot allow the CPM horror to return. We have seen how cruel they were. But now they make tall claims,” she added.

Cautioning critics, Mamata said: “Please don’t teach me moral values of politics. I am a product of student politics. Student politics has taught me to survive against all odds. I have come here the hard way.”

Rebutting allegations by Opposition parties of an understanding between Trinamool and BJP after sharing the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a public event last week, Mamata clarified that she attended the event as it was related to the state’s development and there was a “limit” to politicising everything.

The CM said if she did not participate at the IISCO programme in Burnpur, which was attended by Modi during his visit to the state, she would have been accused of lacking courtesy.

Asking TMCP members to make use of the cyber space to counter the “smear campaign against the party”, Mamata said: “Use social networking sites to counter the smear campaign by a section of the media and the Opposition. See how the media makes news in a second. An example is my meeting with PM. If I go to a meeting with PM, the media has a problem. If I don’t, then also they have a problem.”

“If I don’t go, some people will say I lack courtesy. If I go, you will do Hindu-Muslim politics. There is a limit to everything and all kind of canards. And why will I not go? We have given land to IISCO plant and it is a programme relating to the development of the state. Why will I allow others to take away the credit?” she added.

Mamata’s comments came against the backdrop of allegations levelled by CPM and Congress that her sharing of dais with Modi during the inauguration of a modernised IISCO steel plant was a result of a covert political understanding between BJP and TMC over CBI going slow on the Saradha scam and Trinamool helping BJP in passing of bills in Rajya Sabha.

(With PTI inputs)