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The Trinamool Congress attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday for asking P Chidambaram to 'mind' his language following the Union home minister's 'buck stops with you' remark.
"The chief minister himself uses indecent language against the opposition and he is trying to find fault with Chidambaram's remarks who should have used stronger words," Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee told the media.
"The chief minister cannot always speak English correctly and tends to commit mistake. In the first place passing the buck is not slang.
"When law and order worsens and democracy is under attack in a state, the Centre cannot remain a silent spectator. It should act by using the Constitutional provisions," he said. During a visit to Lalgarh on Sunday, Chidambaram had expressed unhappiness over recurring inter-party clashes in the state and said he had told the chief minister "the buck stops with you".
Retorting to the remark, Bhattacharjee told journalists on Monday, "Buck is the not the language of politicians. It is a slang. I will tell him to mind his language. I had asked him to tell the Opposition to cooperate with the government."
Chatterjee, who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, pointed out that Bhattacharjee had used the term 'paid back in their own coin' to describe the Opposition during the 'recapture' of Nandigram.
"Bhattacharjee and some of his party colleagues have been using slang so profusely that a dictionary of slang can be compiled," he said.
He accused the chief minister of not trying to control party leaders like Benoy Konar, Anil Basu and Dipak Sarkar for using inappropriate language against the Opposition. Claiming that there was no law and order in West Bengal, he said, "We want peace free from terror and strong arm tactics by the Communist Party of India-Marxist.
People will reply through ballots against the bullets in the coming assembly elections." He also criticised Bhattacharjee for saying that the opposition parties were not cooperating with the government.
"What cooperation? When Mamata Banerjee was on hunger strike over the Singur issue, he did not cooperate and also violated the agreement signed in the presence of the governor," Chatterjee said.
He claimed that killings by the CPI-M had not stopped even after Chidambaram said that it was the state's duty to ensure inter-party clashes ended.
"In the past two days, four of our workers have lost their lives in the state with the police remaining inactive. The CPI-M is solely responsible for the violence in various parts of the state," he said.