Kolkata/New Delhi: A day after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram took on the West Bengal government over increasing cases of political violence in the state, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday hit back writing an angry letter to the former.
The Trinamool Congress chief slammed the comments of the Union Home Minister on the law and order situation in West Bengal questioning the basis of it. In her letter, she asked what prompted the Union minister to make those remarks and what his sources were.
She further said that the figures quoted by Chidambaram were incorrect.
While the Home Minister had claimed that as many as 82 people had died in political clashes in West Bengal in 2012 alone, the Mamata Banerjee government maintained that only five people had been killed in such incidents.
Addressing the members of the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, the Union Home Minister had said that as many as 82 people were killed in 455 cases of inter-party clashes in the last six months and it was a matter of concern.
He had also said that 1112 people were injured in the inter-party clashes, adding that it was "a matter of concern and it should come to an end".
He said there should be a democratic way to protest and not violence. "Before we ask Maoists to abjure violence, we must follow the same," said Chidambaram.
However, the Congress appears to have distanced itself from the comments of the Union Minister, which came just days ahead of the presidential elections.
In an apparent conciliatory signal to Banerjee, the Congress on Friday chose to ignore Chidambaram's criticism of Trinamool Congress-ruled West Bengal.
"I am not aware of any such statement and under what context the said statement was made by the Home Minister...This all happens in politics", party spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury told reporters.
(With Additional Inputs from PTI)
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