It is almost hypocritical on the part of the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee to congratulate H D Devegowda and H D Kumaraswamy in Karnataka at a time when post-rural poll violence is burning parts of the state, leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Abdul Mannan said on Saturday.

The chief minister should refresh her memory how her party leadership engineered defections from the ranks of Congress Legislature Party (CLP), he said. How are the actions of Trinamul Congress party better in any way than those political outfits which engage in political horse-trading, the CLP leader asked. The chief minister is the last person to welcome value-based politics if the actions of her party is anything to go by, he said.

The state government has lost face in the rural polls despite winning it, Mannan said. It has done so after preventing Oppostion nominees from filing nomination and then not letting the people to vote for the nominee of their choice, he said.

Given the large number of independents who are actually dissident members of Trinamul, one can have an idea of the intra-party squabble, Mannan said.

And after having intimidated some of them, the Trinamul leadership is welcoming those opposed it in the rural polls into its own party, he added.

What can be more ridiculous than the chief minister of a state where democracy has ceased to exist congratulating others for success of democracy, former BJP state president, Rahul Sinha said. Chief minister did not utter any protest when criminals enjoying the patronage of her party prevented Opposition nominees from filing their nomination in the rural polls, he said.

The process continued even thereafter and the panchayat election day was marked by death and violence which are anything but democratic practices, Sinha said.

Even now BJP candidates who have won in the rural polls are being triggered to be enticed to join Trinamul, after having encouraged such practices the arrival of such a chief minister in Karnataka on the occasion of the swearing of a new chief minister will defile the state, he said.