Trinamool is doing a CPM, Cong tells Rahul

The new Trinamool Congress-Congress combine in West Bengal has barely completed 100 days in power, but already, cracks are appearing within the alliance.

The Congress has alleged that Trinamool activists, much in the style of CPM goons, are attacking their workers. And on Monday, they took their grievances to party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, begging him to come to their rescue.

A state Congress delegation met Gandhi in Delhi and asked him to visit Bengal and intervene in the matter.

"Trinamool is thwarting our attempts to spread our base in Bengal, we appealed for Gandhi's intervention," said Debabrata Bose, vice president of the state Congress.

The delegation also met Shakeel Ahmed, Congress general secretary in charge of Bengal. They are writing to party chairman Sonia Gandhi as well.

"There are reports of some incidents in which our workers have been attacked," Ahmed told HT on phone from Delhi.

The state Congress contends that for over three months, ever since the assembly election victory, Trinamool activists have been targetting Congress workers in Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore and Birbhum districts.

"We have already received over 50 complaints of torture," state Congress president and Rajya Sabha member president Pradip Bhattacharjee had said at a rally held in West Midnapore's Khakurda village on September 9.

At the rally, held after local Congressmen were injured in a clash with Trinamool workers, Bhattacharjee and state irrigation minister Manas Bhuinya had lambasted the Trinamool for the attacks.

The leaders had also compared members of the ruling party with former CPM cadres. Ahmed was present at the meeting.

Recently, Bhattacharjee had written to chief minister Mamata Banerjee on the subject. "If necessary, we will write again to the chief minister. We want to maintain a cordial relationship with the workers of the ruling party," said Rabindranath Chatterjee, Congress MLA from Burdwan and a member of Monday's delegation.

Senior Trinmool leaders, including state rural development minister Sishir Adhikary, refused to comment on the issue.