Taking a dig at the Congress, railway minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said big parties should respect smaller ones for the smooth running of a coalition, and her party "would not beg" before Delhi.
"In coalition politics, big parties should always respect small parties. And vice-versa, small parties should always have respect for big parties," Banerjee said in an interview to a private Bengali news channel on Wednesday night.
"If somebody trusts us 100%t, then we trust them 101 percent. But we will not beg in front of Delhi and show out weakness," Banerjee said.
She was responding to a question about the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government turning a deaf ear to her persistent demand for withdrawal of joint security forces in Maoist-hit districts of West Bengal.
The union government - which considers the Maoist guerillas as the biggest internal security threat before the country - has maintained that the joint forces are needed to flush out the guerrillas.
The Trinamool Congress is the second largest party in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance-II regime.
{{/usCountry}}The Trinamool Congress is the second largest party in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance-II regime.
{{/usCountry}}Banerjee, however, stated that her party would do nothing to weaken the government and would continue as an ally for the full five-year term.
"We are in a coalition government. We have given them our opinion. It's up to them to decide what they will do and what they will not. But I want to say that we are not that kind of a party that we will blackmail them," she said.
"I have told them about the atrocities the Communist Party of India-Marxist is unleashing on the common people in the name of joint forces operation," Banerjee said.