KOLKATA: A day after West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh threatened to 'encounter' Trinamool Congress workers, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee dared him to do 'encounters if he has guts'.
Speaking at a TMC core committee meeting here on Thursday, the TMC supremo said: "Some people are threatening to conduct 'encounters'. I dare them to do 'encounters' if they have guts. TMC workers are working for the party with their lives on the sword as BJP is spreading terror in the state and looting people."
Urging party workers to buck up for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Mamata Banerjee warned party workers against indulging in extortion and infighting.
"Those unwilling to increase public relations and work with people are not required in Trinamool Congress. There is no place for people passing their time in the party," she said. The Trinamool Congress supremo even named several district leaders and ministers and asked them to solve factional fights or else she threatened to remove both leaders of the factions from the party and install younger leaders in their places.
Several old-timer Trinamool Congress leaders (part of TMC before 2011) were allegedly not given tickets during the panchayat elections and they won as independents. Calling this as a worrying trend, the party supremo said that old-timers have to be respected at all points and have to be taken along for party works.
The West Bengal Chief Minister also warned youth wing of the party against acting independently of the party leadership. "Yuva TMC is under TMC. Infighting between the two will not be tolerated. Two party offices of the same party will not be entertained," she said.