Mamata Banerjee is speaking on PM Modi’s direction: Congress

Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee struck a deal to tarnish the image of his party colleague Rahul Gandhi.

Escalating his attack, the Congress leader said the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo's remarks on Gandhi were aimed at pleasing PM Modi, who wants to save herself from raids by the Executive Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

“Mamata Banerjee is speaking at the behest of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and 'didi' have made a deal to tarnish the image of Rahul Gandhi and the Congress. He wants to save himself from ED-CBI raids and that is why he is against the Congress because the Prime Minister will be happy with it,” news agency ANI quoted Chowdhury as saying.

The Congress leader's outburst came a day after Banerjee took a shot at Gandhi at an internal TMC meeting, calling him PM Modi's "biggest TRP".

Claiming that the Congress leader was an asset to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the TMC supremo said the ruling party wanted to make Gandhi a "hero". “It is the Congress that is bowing down to the BJP. Congress, CPM and BJP are inciting minorities against Trinamool,” she told her party workers in Murshidabad in a virtual address from Kolkata.

The war of words comes as the parliamentary budget session has so far been completely suspended following protests by members of both the ruling and opposition parties. While the BJP demanded an apology from Gandhi for his remarks in London, the opposition demanded that the Adani issue be probed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).

During his interactions in London, the Congress leader claimed that the structures of Indian democracy were under attack and that there was an "all-out assault" on the country's institutions. The remarks triggered political malaise, with the BJP accusing him of maligning India on foreign soil and seeking foreign intervention, and the Congress hit back by citing previous instances of PM Modi raising domestic politics abroad.