Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday, a day before the state goes to the polls in a closely watched election, rebutting their claims that the ruling Trinamool Congress operates extortion syndicates.
“They have two syndicates. One is a rioter, has sponsored riots in Delhi, Gujarat and UP. And the other one… has slowed industrial growth but is only growing his beard. Sometimes he puts himself above Gandhi ji, above Rabindranath Tagore, sometimes calls himself Swami Vivekananda and names stadiums after himself. One day he will sell the country too and name it after himself. Something is wrong with their head. It seems a screw is loose,” she said.
Ms Banerjee has repeatedly said that the day will come when the nation will be named after PM Modi, who renames stadiums after himself and has his image printed on coronavirus vaccination.
“The Prime Minister has named a stadium after him. He has put his photographs on COVID-19 vaccination certificates. He is making ISRO send his picture to space. A day will come when the country will be named after him,” Mr Banerjee had said earlier this month.
West Bengal will hold elections in a record eight phases beginning March 27 in a campaign in which the BJP has pulled out all the stops, including recruiting a large number of Trinamool leaders, to unseat the two-term Chief Minister. On May 2, the votes will be counted.
Mamata Banerjee And BJP:
During the election campaign, both sides have launched vitriolic assaults on each other. Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh, who was widely chastised by political leaders for suggesting that Mamata Banerjee should wear Bermuda shorts if she wanted to show off her legs, doubled down on his remarks on Thursday, saying it is “inappropriate” for a sari-clad woman to show her legs.
In response to Mamata Banerjee’s speech in East Midnapore, on Wednesday, the BJP said, “Contents of the video reveal that Mamata Banerjee has intentionally, with a malafide objective, attempted to communalise and spread hatred on religious lines.”
The BJP alleged in a letter to West Bengal’s Chief Electoral Officer that Mamata Banerjee’s speech was “extremely inflammatory” and that its tone and tenor were intended to “aggravate established religious differences between communities.”
The BJP has taken objected to a part of Mamata Banerjee’s speech where she said in Bangla “kopale tilok kete, ekta gerua dress poreamadar bangla sonskriti ke dhongsho kore dichhe“. It means,”Wearing a saffron dress and sporting a tilak on the forehead, they [BJP] are destroying the Bengal’s culture.”
