Kolkata: It's a move that could become the latest stress test of the tense relationship between the Congress and key ally, Mamata Banerjee. At a press conference in Delhi, Home Minister P Chidambaram said that early leads suggest the Maoists were behind Friday's train tragedy in which more than 140 people were killed after a train derailed in the Midnapore district of West Bengal. A section of the track was found missing.
"The needle of suspicion points to Maoists or frontal organisations of CPI Maoists," Chidambaram said during his monthly media briefing.
"However, the identity of the culprit can be established only in the investigations," he added.
Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress have repeatedly said that there's no evidence so far to suggest that the Maoists caused the gigantic accident. Instead, Banerjee has blamed a political conspiracy for the tragedy, suggesting that the Left government in the state tried to embarrass her by manufacturing the accident on the eve of West Bengal's municipal polls.
Banerjee had demanded a CBI inquiry into the accident. And minutes after Chidambaram said in Delhi that he was waiting for the state government's response, he got his answer.
"There is no need for a CBI probe, that's what the state government thinks," said West Bengal Home Secretary Samar Ghosh, adding that the government's own inquiry was making smooth progress.
Banerjee's party said the refusal proves what it's been alleging all along. "This is exactly the stand we had taken...it is vindicated. Why is the CPM-led state government afraid of the truth? Now the needle of suspicion is definitely at the doorstep of the CPM," charged Dinesh Trivedi, a Trinamool leader and MP.
According to the law, the Centre cannot order a CBI inquiry without the state government's request, or without a court order.