“She (Mamata Banerjee) is now looking for an excuse to leave the INDIA alliance. She has a setting with the BJP, and it has been proved again. She has to save her family from the CBI and ED. So, she is doing what the BJP is dictating,” CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim said.

“Yesterday, state government officials had a meeting with the Central government officers in Delhi, and today she gave this reaction. One can understand what is going on,” Salim added, referring to the meeting of the state and Central officials over pending dues to West Bengal.

The Indian Express on Tuesday reported that after the meeting, senior officials of the West Bengal government expressed hope “of early resolution” and release of the funds to the state. For over a year, the TMC government in West Bengal has accused the BJP government at the Centre of withholding the state’s share of funds under various schemes, including MGNREGA (rural job guarantee scheme) and PM Awas Yojana (PMAY).

“We have to fight together for upholding independence and democracy, as going with the TMC will not save the Congress… Our condition is that it (Congress) must not have any truck with the TMC,” Salim said.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader from Bengal, Deepa Dasmunsi, echoed Salim, “Her (Mamata Banerjee’s) statement is proving that she is acting in the hands of the BJP.”

However, her party colleague and state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury refused to comment on the TMC chief’s remark.  Speaking to mediapersons in Cooch Behar in north Bengal, Chowdhury said: “I have come here to see the preparation for Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra… I do not know who will join the yatra and who will not. I am also unaware who is saying what.”

Rahul’s yatra is set to enter West Bengal through Bakshirhat in Cooch Behar on Thursday.