Mitra denies floating new party, vows to strengthen Congress

Kolkata, Apr 21 (UNI) Struggling more with intra-party problem than with the CPI(M), former Pradesh Congress President Somen Mitra today denied that he was planning to float a new party in West Bengal.

''After the March 14 Nandigram killings, I had never said I would form a party. I only said people have lost their faith in our party and it was right time to regain their faith. So why is there such a whisper campaign I don't understand,'' Mr Mitra said at the Nandigram protest rally at Shahid Minar here.

He alleged that after the party's defeat in 1977 Lok Sabha election, several party leaders had left the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and were hunting the safest places or joined another party, but then ''Mr Pranab Mukherjee, Late MP A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury and I had raised the slogan '' No Indira No Congress.'' He said, ''I had received several recognitions from Ms Gandhi and am a trusted soldier of the party, so it would be punishable if I had left her at that time. But I strengthened the Congress after that in the state, so people will not believe that Mr Mitra would leve the party and form a new party.'' ''I only say that people have lost their faith in the Congress after the Nandigram killings and the party has no strength to fight alone against the Left Front government. So it was right time to back the people's faith and form an anti-Left democratic secular front with the Trinamool Congress to oust the ruling government in the state,'' Mr Mitra said.

He said, ''The party High Command had said that the alliance could be possible with the TMC if the latter quit trucking with BJP and sine she was keeping a safe distance from the BJP for the last few month, where is the problem now about the alliance? ''A section of party leaders were also campaigning that I was organising this rally for becoming the PCC president again, but they should be aware that it would be decided by party president Sonia Gandhi and nobody has the right to violate her decision,'' he said.

''We want industry in the state but it should be maintaining the balance between agriculture and industry. The government should stop land acquiring and call an all-party meeting and take a decision unanimously where the industry will be held or not,'' he demanded.

''We are taking the oath from this rally to regain the Congress' glorious position and our movement for ousting the LF from the state would continue,'' he said.

WBPCC working president Pradip Bhattacharjee said, ''if the Left parties can be together after the Tebagha movement, so why not we after the Nandigram incidents?'' He said it was the need to strengthen our party's organisation in the rural areas to oust the ruling government from the state.

CLP leader of the assembly Manas Bhuiya, MP A.H.Chowdhury, MP, Mannan Hossein, Ruby Noor also spoke in the rally.

UNI