Desk Report: West Bengal�s Left Front Chairman Biman Bose has launched a flat-out attack against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, saying her party had �close rapport� with the Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh. Addressing a huge protest rally at Kolkata�s Brigade Parade Ground attended by tens of thousands of supporters on Sunday, Bose said Mamata was �patronising the Islamic fundamentalist rejected by the people of Bangladesh�.

�She is giving them shelter here, she is patronising the politics of religious fundamentalism, she is playing a dangerous game,� the senior politician said in what was clearly the most outspoken criticism of Mamata�s Bangladesh policy.

"When Bangladesh police operate in Satkhira and Jamaat cadres have to flee, they get shelter from the Trinamul MP in Basirhat," Biman Bose alleged.

�Why do you think she is obstructing the Centre from signing the Teesta water-sharing agreement, why is she opposing the land boundary agreement? All this because she wants to please the Jamaat-e-Islami and put (Sheikh) Hasina in difficulty,� he continued.

Bose said one of the MPs Trinamul Congress, Ahmed Hassan, sent to Rajya Sabha in last week�s polls is closely linked to Jamaat. �He was a correspondent of Jamaat�s paper Naya Diganta.�

According to him, his party had all the details of the �thick links' between Jamaat and Trinamul Congress.

�We Leftists strongly support the politics of secularism in Bangladesh that Hasina upholds. It is beyond our comprehension how a Bengali leader who says she is committed to secularism can support the defeated forces of 1971,� Biman Bose said.

He observed that the people of West Bengal �will never forgive� Mamata for �deliberately spoiling� the relations with Bangladesh.

The Left Front Chairman said the BJP was holding out a �carrot� for Banerjee, as evident from Narendra Modi's praise for her achievements.

�Will you be surprised if she does business with Hindu fundamentalists in India and Muslim fundamentalists in Bangladesh, all for the sake of power,� Bose asked.

The Left Chairman also said the US had boosted Mamata, first to topple the Left in West Bengal and then to 'disturb' Hasina in Bangladesh.

"The game is all out in the open now."

Bose�s attack comes a week after former Left Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya attacked Mamata Banerjee for �spoiling relations with our natural friends in Bangladesh�.

He said Mamata had met the Pakistan High Commissioner in India Salman Bashir and called for better relations with Pakistan.

�We want good relations with Pakistan but not at the expense of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is much more important for us,� Bhattacharya had said.

Bhattacharya had recalled the 'positive initiative' of his predecessor Jyoti Basu in pushing through the Ganges water-sharing treaty in 1997.

"We did it to put our relations on a firm footing. We have to address the genuine needs of Bangladesh. But now all that is jeopardised," Bhattacharya had said. source-Bdnews24

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Local Time : 0316 Hours, 10 February 2024