PM tears into Left at rally in Kolkata

After Sonia Gandhi on Monday, it was the turn of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 76, to share the dais with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, 54, on Friday, where he joined her in severely criticizing the ruling Left Front in the state, and spoke at length about the benefits of the nuclear deal with the United States that had caused the Left to part ways with the ruling UPA.

After Sonia Gandhi on Monday, it was the turn of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 76, to share the dais with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, 54, on Friday, where he joined her in severely criticizing the ruling Left Front in the state, and spoke at length about the benefits of the nuclear deal with the United States that had caused the Left to part ways with the ruling UPA.

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“I believe the Left will be proved wrong in its stand on the nuclear deal, just as it has been wrong on so many other issues in the past,” he said.

Addressing a 10,000 strong rally in Howrah, on the outskirts of Kolkata, Dr Singh also decried the Left’s obsession with opposing the Congress.

“The CPI(M) has mentioned the Congress 24 times in its manifesto, opposing its policies in some way or other,” he said. He in turn attacked the Left Front government for the violence that accompanied its land acquisition efforts at Singur and Nandigram.

“Industrialization is necessary, but not by appropriating agricultural land,” he said. “And if such land must be acquired, farmers should be properly compensated.”