Kolkata, June 20: In keeping with its earlier decision, the opposition Trinamool Congress today boycotted an all-party meeting called by the West Bengal assembly Speaker prior to the start of the remaining part of the budget session on June 26. The boycott was in protest against alleged 'rigging' by the CPI(M) in last month's violence-ridden Panchayat elections and 'state-sponsored terrorism'. While TC defended its decision to stay away from the meeting chaired by the Speaker H A Halim, the CPI(M)-led ruling Left Front and the Congress strongly criticised it as 'unjustified'.
"We have decided the boycott on moral principles. It is to lodge a strong enough protest against the terror practised by the CPI(M)," TC leader Saugata Roy, MLA, said.
This was part of the earlier decision taken by the party last month to boycott the remaining part of the budget session of the West Bengal assembly beginning on June 26 to protest CPI(M)'s 'terror tactics', Roy said.
It was decided that legislators would also boycott all meetings of committees of the house during the period on the issue of Marxist violence, he said. The budget session had begun on March five and was adjourned on March 31 till June 26.

The CPI(M)-led left front retained its stranglehold in the three-tier Panchayat in West Bengal for the sixth consecutive term, notching up a majority of the Panchayat Samiti and Gram Panchayat seats after making a clean sweep of the vital Zilla Parishads in the May 11 poll. Bureau Report