Countering the CPI(M) allegation of her party's truck with the Maoists, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Sunday that the Maoists and the Marxists are both sides of the same coin.

"I think that the Marxists and the Maoists are both sides of the same coin. They are working together," she told newspersons in Kolkata.

Alleging that the CPI(M) was running the government with the help of the Maoists, she said there was no difference between the violent activities of the Maoists and Marxists.

"If Maoists are to be banned, why not the CPI(M) which is also carrying out armed operations in the state?"

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had appealed to the Trinamool Congress yesterday to "severe links with the rebels".

Describing Bhattacharjee as "both a Marxist and Maoist with a double face," Banerjee accused him of inaction in tracing the missing policemen Sabir Ali Molla and Kanchan Gorai reportedly kidnapped by Maoists on July 30.

"The Union Home Minister had said that the Centre is willing to help in the search of these two policemen. I want to know why they are not being looked for even after this. Does not the Chief Minister have the responsibility to look for them?" she said.

She claimed the state government was using CPI(M) cadre to carry out armed operations against opposition leaders and workers. Sixty nine Trinamool supporters have been killed by CPI(M) activists over the past few months.