New Delhi: Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Saturday termed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's attack on the Left government in West Bengal as "tantamount to insulting the people of Bengal".
The people of West Bengal have elected the Left Front government seven times in a row, Yechury said. "Why are the people continuing to impose faith in the Left? If you say they are doing so for the wrong reasons, then it is tantamount to insulting the people of Bengal," he said.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, speaking in Kolkata, launched a scathing attack on the CPI-M-led state government, accusing it of having failed to deliver the benefits of development to the poor in the state and also said the Communists do not have the right ideas for growth.
Yechury also said that Rahul Gandhi's father, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's criticism of the Left front government in the state was proved wrong.
"Rajiv Gandhi had once said Kolkata was a dying city, and you remember what happened after that. Now his son is echoing similar things about West Bengal. Everybody has the right to their opinion," the CPI-M leader said.
Referring to the study by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on West Bengal's performance, Yechury said he had ranked the state among the top three states.
He also referred to a World Bank report that there was a decline in the below poverty line-level population.
"You too won't agree that Ahluwalia is a Left spokesman or the World Bank a Left body," the CPI-M leader said and warned that "we can also give poverty figures of the states being ruled by the Congress".
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