CPI-M importing Maoists from Nepal: Mamata

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday claimed that the Communist Party of India-Marxist was importing Maoists from Nepal and providing them with arms to terrorise people.

"The CPI-M is bringing Maoists from Nepal and supplying arms to them. The CPI-M and the Maoists are twin brothers.

They were resorting to killings to terrorise people. Both of them are killers and both have no place in the land of West Bengal," she said at a party rally in West Bengal.

The rally was held amid tight security with a large contingent of policemen being deployed in and around the venue of the meeting at Garbari math in Hooghly district, where clashes broke out between Trinamool and CPI-M supporters at two places -- Kable More and Champadanga -- ahead of the meeting.

Calling the CPI-M and the Maoists a danger for democracy, Banerjee called upon people to reject the both "to save the country".

The railway minister, before concluding her speech, asked her party supporters to shout in chorus with the slogan 'Lal Hatao, Desh Bachao, Mao Hatao Desh Bachao' (Remove both the Left parties and the Maoists to save the country.

Without raising the demand for the imposition of President's rule in West Bengal, Banerjee said the CPI-M had unleashed a reign of terror after suffering successive defeats in elections.

Saying her party would fight the Marxists politically, Banerjee urged the people to defeat CPI-M through ballots in the assembly polls, which is due in 2011.

"The CPI-M itself is paving the way for the imposition of President's rule. The more they will resort to violence, the more they will make it easier for central rule," she said.