Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on August 12 warned the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in West Bengal against "playing politics" by using the Gujarat riot victim Qutubuddin Ansari as a secular mascot with an eye on Muslim vote bank for the Lok Sabha elections.

''We are not opposed to his coming here and providing him a shelter. But the way CPM were engaged in politics out of Ansari to play on Muslim sentiments was highly condemnable", Banerjee told a party rally to mark the observance of "Sanghati Divas" by the party on the Raksha Bandhan day on August 12.

Ansari, who worked as a tailor in the riot-hit Ahmedabad city, hit global headlines after photographs of his tear-soaked face and folded hands, became synonymous with the plight of Gujarat riot victims in 2002.

The CPM and its youth wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) were instrumental in providing asylum to him in the city's Park Circus area after he arrived with his family on August 9.

Alleging that Ansari had been given shelter to an "illegal flat", Banerjee told the gathering of her party supporters that that CPM, which was afraid of losing Muslim vote bank in the next Lok Sabha election had decided that the party would play saviour to Ansari.

"The CPM should be ashamed of making politics out of Ansari to play on Muslim sentiments."

PTI