Hakim accuses Adhir of poaching TMC workers, calls Congress & CPI(M) agents of BJP

Kolkata: During a public meeting at Murshidabad on Sunday, TMC leader and Cabinet minister Firhad Hakim accused the Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of poaching disgruntled workers from his party who were refused tickets for Panchayat polls while warning the people that Congress and CPI(M) have colluded to pave the way for a BJP rule in Bengal.

Hakim was addressing a meeting at Khargram, Murshidabad. Addressing the people in this minority-dominated district, he said that the opposition parties in Bengal have realised that their defeat in the upcoming panchayat election is inevitable.

Hence, they are now mounting efforts to thwart the elections by hook or by crook, he opined. “Every day these opposition parties are going to court in an attempt to stall the elections. They are misleading the court to deprive people of their rights in the state’s rural areas. These opposition parties have lost ground below their feet” he alleged.

He said that at a time when TMC leaders are roaming the districts of the state to help people and listen to their grievances, the Opposition party leaders are spending time on television channels and giving big talks instead of reaching out to the people.

Hakim took a dig at the Congress MP from Murshidabad, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Without naming him, Hakim said “There is a big Congress leader from Murshidabad who was elected to Lok Sabha from the Behrampore seat. In his desperation to hold his ground in the district, he is now preoccupied with surveying the

TMC workers who were refused poll tickets from the party. He is trying to poach these workers so they can be pitted against the TMC candidate.”

He said that initially, every TMC worker used to be in Congress but eventually broke away from the party after seeing that it was continuing to appease the CPI(M) despite its workers getting killed at the hands of the Left party. Hakim alleged now both the Congress and the Left have become agents of the BJP.

“All that the BJP has done in nine years is to change names of places and make capitalists richer. The poor are getting poorer. If they come to power in Bengal they might also change the name of Murshidabad and name it after Amit Shah or Savarkar,” Hakim alleged.