Leave Trinamool, join our fold: Congress to Dinesh Trivedi

Kolkata, May 2  Two days after Trinamool Congress MP and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi claimed "honesty is being punished and dishonesty rewarded" in his party, West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury invited him to join his party.

"Our offer to Dinesh Trivedi is to leave the Trinamool, which awards dishonesty, and join Congress. Trivedi is basically a Congress product and is more Congress than many of us," Chowdhury said on Monday.

Vociferous against his party leaders over the Narada sting operation in which several Trinamool leaders have been 'caught' on camera accepting bribe, Trivedi on Saturday hit out against his own party.

"If honesty is punished and dishonesty is rewarded, I think that is sad," Trivedi said, giving the reason for being kept out of the Trinamool's assembly polls campaign. 

"But I have no regrets... as long you do the right thing. I have no confusion in my mind, it's the country which matters, parties come and go," Trievdi said.

Subsequent to the sting operation becoming public, Trivedi had kicked up a storm by suggesting those "shown accepting money in the sting operation should sit at home till they come out clean".

Meanwhile, the Trinamool has called the Congress' offer to Trivedi as a personal matter.

"It's their personal matter, who am I say anything. He (Chowdhury) has sent the invitation and (if) he (Trivedi) accepts it, it's between them," Trinamool Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee said. 

"It's not related to any party matter, but their personal affair," added Abhishek, who is also the nephew of party supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.