CPM, Maoists plotting to kill me with foreign help: Mamata

Targeting her Marxist opponents again, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that Communist Party of India-Marxist was plotting with Maoists to kill her with the help of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and financed by North Korea, Venezuela and Hungary.

The CPI-M dismissed the allegation as "ridiculous" and said the party will examine whether it merited a defamation suit against the firebrand Trinamool Congress supremo.

Mamata launched the fresh tirade against her arch rival when she spoke about conspiracy theories after she was asked about the arrest of a Jadavpur University professor over his cartoon for poking fun at her.

Asked about the cartoon by Washington Post for an article on her in the United States daily, Mamata launched into a tirade about how her Marxist political opponents were plotting with the Maoist rebels to discredit and kill her, in league with Pakistan's intelligence agency and financed by North Korea, Venezuela and Hungary.

"They have given me the death sentence, and every day they are spreading this superimposed photo, on Facebook, on Internet or in the e-mail, through some false, camouflaged name," she said.

Rejecting the allegation, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury said there cannot be anything more ridiculous than Mamata naming his party, Maoists, Venezuela, Hungary and North Korea as a "grand coalition and axis of the evil" and giving such a statement to the international media.

"We will examine whether it merits defamation," he told reporters.

West Bengal Urban Development Minister Farhad Hakim defended Mamata's comments, alleging that the Maoists and the CPI-M want to take the life of the chief minister.

"The Maoists and the CPM are against her life, it is known to everyone. And they want to kill the democracy, kill the progress," he said in Kolkata.

Hakim did not want to go into details into the allegation that the CPI-M and the Maoists are receiving funds for their campaign. He, however, said there is some funding to these organisations.

The US daily in its article also called Mamata the biggest obstacle to liberalisation in India.