Mamata Banerjee wants stable government at Centre after LS polls

Kolkata, Feb 18: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she wanted a stable government at the Centre after the Lok Sabha elections which would work for the people and keep its pre-election promises.

Trinamool Congress supremo Banerjee said this at the NSCBI Airport here before leaving for Delhi on a 3-day visit during which she is scheduled to meet Anna Hazare. "I am a simple person and I belong to the common people. I think whatever the government, democracy should continue and that is why we want a government which will be of the common people, by the common people and for the common people," she told reporters.

Banerjee made these comments when asked if she would lead the proposed non-Congress and non-BJP Federal Front of regional parties mooted by her earlier.

"It is not right that we make promises before the election and not honour them afterwards," she said. She also criticised the Centre for not paying any heed to the state government's repeated requests on debt restructuring.

Mamata criticised the Centre for ignoring requests on debt restructuring

The UPA government, she said, had taken away Rs 70,000 crore as interest payment for the huge loan taken by the previous Left Front government in two and a half years since the TMC government came to power.

On her meeting Hazare, Banerjee said, "I have great regard for him. When he is in Delhi and expressed his desire that he will be very happy to meet me when Mukul Roy (TMC general secretary) had called on him."

"I never met him. This is the first time I am meeting him in Delhi. I will be happy and obliged to meet him. Let me see, let me meet and then I will let you know," she said when asked what she was going to discuss with him.

Banerjee was critical of the Centre's Telangana move, wondering why the issue was taken up before the election which has generated so much "uproar", and not after the election.

PTI