Continuing her tirade against the BJP-led NDA Government for “taking India towards a political chaos,” Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said the saffron Government had ensured that the key institutions of the country were destroyed.
In an apparent bid to catch the bull by its horn the Chief Minister also announced counter-Yatras in the wake of BJP’s much publicised Rath Yatras beginning next month. The TMC Yatras will follow the route of the BJP Yatras, she said.
The Narendra Modi Government was tearing down the major institutions like Reserve Bank of India and Central Bureau of Investigation Banerjee said promising to do everything to protect these organizations.
“They (Modi Government) are destroying all the key institutions of the country,” Banerjee who had earlier been critical of changing the Planning Commission into Niti Ayog said adding how the Centre was “trying to change the way the RBI and the CBI function.”
The ruling outfit (read BJP) that was making “‘building statues’ its poll agenda will itself become a statue after the coming Lok Sabha elections,” Banerjee told a party meeting in Kolkata.
Dropping hints that the Trinamool Congress was planning to take central stage in Delhi post 2019 general elections, Banerjee said the way the BJP was trying to divide the country and implementing regimes like the National Register for Citizens would force her party to “play a bigger role in the coming days.
“We will not tolerate division in the society and persecution of innocent people in the name of NRC,” Banerjee said giving a call for “BJP Hatao Desh Bachao (save India by driving away the BJP)”.
The Chief Minister who had called a mega rally in January to be held at the historic Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata where she had invited all the anti-BJP parties said “all parties barring a few have confirmed their desire to attend the rally,” adding the same will act as the final nail in the BJP’s coffin.
Attacking the saffron outfit for reintroducing the age-old tactic of Rath Yatras to polarize the Hindu vote, Banerjee said, “the BJP is organizing the Rath Yatra to divide the people but we will organize similar Yatras which will be called “Ekta Yatra (Unity Rally)” on the same route that their Yatra follows.”
The Trinamool Congress’ Yatra “is aimed at uniting and not dividing the communities,” Banerjee said.
Incidentally the CPI(M) which was locked in a battle with the BJP for the second place in the State has also announced rallies following the same path that the BJP’s Yatra is like to take.
The BJP is scheduled to take out three Yatras in December. While the first Yatra will start from Ganga Sagar (the southernmost tip of Bengal), the second one will commence from Tarapeeth in Birbhum district. The third Yatra will start from the northern most district o the State Coochbehar bordering Assam. The BJP’s chariots will converge at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on January 23 the birth day of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the party sources said.
Enroute the Yatras will cover several thousand kilometers, during which 60 mass meetings will be held.
Top BJP leaders including party president Amit Shah, Assam Chief Minister Sarwananda Sonowal and his UP counterpart Yogi Adityanath will address the BJP rallies sources said.
“The Yatras will be taken out against Trinamool Congress’ reign of terror, its appeasement policy and its aiding the continuing infiltration through Bangladesh border,” BJP State Rahul Sinha said.
However TMC MP and Chief Minister’s nephew said the Rath Yatra would in fact be a “luxury tour of the State in air-conditioned vehicles by the BJP leaders.”