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Tag: Mamata Banerjee

  • Parties like Indian Secular Front more dangerous than cobra: Mamata Banerjee

    By PTI
    CHUNCHURA/BHANGAR: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday attacked the Indian Secular Front (ISF), floated by an influential Muslim cleric and part of the alliance of the CPI(M) and the Congress, alleging that parties like it are “more dangerous than a cobra”.

    Referring to the BJP’s allegation that she indulged in the politics of minority appeasement, Banerjee claimed that Hindus and Muslims are living well in the state since she is there.

    The Trinamool Congress supremo also asserted that she would win the ongoing state polls despite suffering an injury and eventually aim for power in Delhi.

    Launching a scathing attack on ISF leader Abbas Siddiqui without naming him, she said, “A traitor has emerged from Furfura Sharif who has taken money from the BJP. You must remember that you can’t win in Bengal through treachery.”

    The CPI(M)-headed Left Front and the Congress have joined hands with the newly-formed ISF floated by Siddiqui, an influential Muslim cleric of Furfura Sharif in Hooghly district of West Bengal.

    Speaking at a rally at Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district which has a considerable minority population, Banerjee asked people not to vote for the ISF candidate there, claiming that every vote for him will mean gain for the BJP.

    “Some say I appease the Muslims. I tell them that both Hindus and Muslims are living well since I am there. It would not have been the case had I not been there,” she said.

    Claiming that the CPI(M) and the Congress are friends of the BJP, the TMC supremo said that another party has surfaced to eat into the minority vote share of her party.

    “Has he suddenly become the leader of minorities with the BJP’s money? He is making communal statements,” she said referring to Abbas.

    It is because of such parties that the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan lost in Bihar and the Samajwadi Party (SP) lost elections in Uttar Pradesh, Banerjee claimed.

    “They are more dangerous than a cobra,” she said.

    Training her guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah who are crisscrossing the state canvassing for the party, Banerjee said that West Bengal will be ruled by its own people and not by anyone from Gujarat.

    “I will win Bengal with one leg and Delhi thereafter with two legs,” Banerjee who is seeking a third term in office, said describing herself as a Royal Bengal Tiger.

    She said that she suffered injuries, which were allegedly inflicted on her by BJP supporters in Nandigram on March 10, to prevent her from campaigning for the West Bengal assembly polls.

    However, after going through the report of poll observers, the EC had concluded that the Nandigram incident was an accident and not a planned attack.

    Criticising the Central government over Saturday’s Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh in which 22 security personnel were killed, the Trinamool Congress boss accused the BJP of not governing the country properly and concentrating on West Bengal elections.

    Lambasting the BJP for bringing leaders to Bengal from all over the country, who “are camping in the state to win the elections”, Banerjee said at a public meeting in Chunchura that the saffron party is fielding its sitting MPs for the assembly polls since it has a dearth of suitable candidates.

    The BJP has nominated its Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta for the assembly polls.

    Banerjee, who has been accused by the prime minister of showering abuses on him on different occasions in the run up to the elections, said that she does not care about Modi calling her “Didi..o…didi” in a tone which some TMC women leaders have termed as sarcastic.

    “He does this every day, I don’t care,” Banerjee said.

    Wondering why the assembly election is being held in the state in eight phases, she said, “It could have been done in 3 or 4 phases.

    Was it not prudent to hold the elections in fewer phases and wrap it up early in view of the COVID-19 situation?” Banerjee also claimed that the coronavirus situation is not grim in the state till now.

    The country recorded an all-time high of 1,03,558 coronavirus infections in a day pushing the nationwide COVID- 19 tally to 1,25,89,067, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

    In West Bengal, 1,957 more people had tested positive for the infection on Sunday.

    Claiming that fingers are raised only against TMC leaders in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam and Narada tapes scandal, Banerjee said that those involved in it but are now in the BJP are not being touched.

    Banerjee asserted that she will not leave an inch of land to the BJP as long as she lives.

    She claimed that BJP is involved in spreading false propaganda that it will win the West Bengal elections.

    “The BJP is a party of thieves,” she said.

  • I will win Bengal with one leg and Delhi with two: Mamata Banerjee

    By PTI
    CHUNCHURA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday asserted that she would win the ongoing state polls despite injury and eventually aim for power in Delhi.

    Training her guns at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, Banerjee who is seeking a third term in office said that West Bengal will be ruled by its own people.

    Terming herself as a Royal Bengal Tiger, the TMC chief said, West Bengal will not be ruled by anyone from Gujarat.

    “I will win Bengal with one leg and Delhi with two legs,” Banerjee said.

    The TMC leader said that she suffered injuries, which were allegedly inflicted on her by BJP supporters in Nandigram on March 10, to prevent her from campaigning for the West Bengal assembly polls, a make or break event for both the TMC and the BJP.

    However, after going through the report of poll observers, the EC had concluded that the Nandigram incident was an accident and not a planned attack.

    Criticising the Central government over Sunday’s naxal attack in Chhattisgarh in which 22 security personnel were killed, the West Bengal chief minister accused the BJP of not governing the country properly and concentrating on West Bengal elections.

    Lambasting the BJP for bringing leaders from all over the country, who “are camping in the state to win the elections”, Banerjee said at a public meeting here that the saffron party is fielding its sitting MPs for the assembly polls since it has a dearth of suitable candidates.

    The BJP has nominated Locket Chatterjee, its Lok Sabha MP from Hooghly, for the Chunchura assembly seat.

    Banerjee, who has been accused by the prime minister of showering abuses on him on different occasions in the run up to the elections, said that she does not care about Modi calling her “Didi o didi” in a tone which some TMC women leaders have termed as sarcastic.

    “He does this everyday, I don’t care,” Banerjee said.

    Questioning the logic behind holding West Bengal assembly elections in eight phases, she said, “It could have been done in 3 or 4 phases.

    “Was it not prudent to hold the elections in fewer phases and wrap it up early in view of the COVID-19 situation?” the chief minister asked.

    Banerjee also claimed that the coronavirus situation is not grim in the state till now.

    The country recorded an all-time high of 1,03,558coronavirus infections in a day pushingthe nationwide COVID-19 tally to1,25,89,067, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

    In West Bengal, 1,957 more people had tested positive for the infection on Sunday.

    Admitting wrongdoings by sitting TMC MLAs Tapan Majumdar and Tapan Dasgupta of Chunchura and Saptagram respectively, who have been fielded by the ruling party, the TMC supremo asked voters to forgive them and give them an opportunity “as they will not do it again”.

    “We will be in big problem if we do not win from Hooghly district,” she said.

    The TMC, which had sway over most of the 18 assembly seats in Hooghly district till the 2016 assembly polls, lost a lot of ground to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

    She claimed that the Centre has refused permission to the TMC government in the state to take over the closed Jessop and Dunlop Industries situated in Hooghly district, leaving thousands of employees of these two companies, in the lurch.

  • Bengal polls 2021: The strategist and the Muslim, SC/ST votebank

    Express News Service
    WEST BENGAL: “This election is bipolar. I don’t see anything else at the micro or macro level.”

    That’s one of Mamata Banerjee’s key strategists airing his views, post two volatile phases of polling, with six more to go, a process that cumulatively promises to run a bleeding-edge scythe through West Bengal’s political history.

    Bengal, particularly Kolkata, is of course teeming with election strategists, free-floating analysts and sundry do-gooders. That’s natural for a state with that kind of heightened political consciousness. But our man stands out for various reasons. For one, no one can be more free-floating than him in an election where the ‘outsider/insider’ binary has been quite pronounced, he’s an outsider on the inside, so to speak, having travelled across a few green fields, been on all sides, peddling his professional wares like a migrant labourer of strategic thought. And he has all the swagger of a new-age visionary.

    It’s quite a crowded field, though. Some have come to save Bengal from cultural corruption, others have come to rescue it from petty corruption—cut money, tolabaaji (extortion), political rent-seeking of many shades, all that. It has some benefits. The hotel industry and the fab cafes haven’t seen such brisk business in the last 10 years of Didi’s rule. None of them will say koro na (don’t do it) to this moveable feast, corona or no corona.

    Among the migratory flocks, some of the busiest are those who make managing elections their raison d’etre. Like our man. Quite apolitical, they look at elections clinically, through the prism of personality cults, creation of catchphrases and hashtags—all with bands of young, outsourced volunteers. “This election is about Mamata Banerjee,” claims one such strategist, “nothing else matters.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who’s thundering forth from more rally pulpits here in Bengal than he may have spoken on some other delicate occasions, pretty much confirms that in his own way. He doesn’t utter a line without mockingly invoking her, intoning the words “Arrey Didi….”

    The strategist obviously thinks he knows the best. But Mamata, being the Didi that she is, can’t be scripted to fit into any box—not even the one that’s labelled Banglar meye (daughter of Bengal). She’s too canny for that. In Cooch Behar, for instance, Mamata reminds voters: “This election is not about me. It is about saving Bengal.” Cooch Behar (nine seats) and Alipurduar (five seats), up north, nestled along the restive Chicken’s Neck, are going to polls on April 6. 

    Subaltern & Muslim votes count in poll fight for Mamata

    This border region, with Assam, Bhutan and the hills adding variety to the proximity of Bangladesh, has a slightly distinct air and culture, separate from the rest of Bengal. They represent a spot of bother for her, but she’ll certainly not let it go without a fight, whatever may the strategist’s view be. Quite surprisingly, here she focuses more on the bit players than on her main rival, the BJP. “Don’t fall for that man from Hyderabad” or “the other one from Furfura Sharif,” she says again and again.

    “Don’t divide your vote.” Lest her target audience misses the point, she clarifies: “My friends from the minority and SC/ST communities, don’t divide your votes.” That’s a nudge to them to stay away from Asaduddin Owaisi and Abbas Siddiqui, the man who floated a party (ISF) just last month and is in an alliance with the Congress-Left. The ISF, incidentally, has fielded more Dalit than Muslim candidates. Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e- Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (colloquially shortened to everywhere here as MIM) is testing the waters in a few, limited seats here—and that may just suffice to cut a few crucial TMC votes in Cooch Behar and adjoining Uttar Dinajpur. Siddiqui (or Abbas Baba, as he’s popularly known) is mostly present in the southern parts, where he has some strength.

    Not so much up there in the north. Not even in the central districts, which have a high Muslim concentration, and are going to polls in the last three phases. That’s left to its partners to harvest their old fiefs. The TMC does need to maximise its gains here, while cutting its losses elsewhere. The old status quo where central Bengal was seen as a traditional secular Congress stronghold, with a smattering of Left presence, has been broken with communal polarisation. Which is at an all-time high now. Hence, the scramble for 30-40% minority votes in about 70 constituencies between the Sanjukta Morcha (of the Congress- Left-ISF) and the TMC each rivalling the other to corner anti-BJP votes.

    Meanwhile, the BJP, which had swept the 2019 Lok Sabha seats in the north, particularly in Cooch Behar, is freely preying everywhere on anti-incumbency votes. And of course, that of neo-converts to Hindu identity politics—a new, burgeoning phenomenon in Bengal. Many districts go to polls only later this month, but work is in full swing. So are WhatsApp videos. The latest is from Siuri, Birbhum, where a Muslim congregation is seen supposedly pledging its votes to saffron! The TMC strategist, for his part, is least bothered. “Let them (as in, BJP) take all the 27 seats in the north. How does it matter? Contrary to propaganda, we’ve done well in the first two phases.

    And we’re winning Nandigram.” No escape from Nandigram! The BJP is all too happy to keep the narrative pinned to what they like to call “Didi’s Waterloo”. And thus conjuring up an image of Mamata leading a retreating army, and letting that flow into public consciousness. The strategist asserts all the Nandigram polling brouhaha and the battle of perspectives thereafter, around who won, will have “no impact” on the next rounds of polling.

    “It’s done and dusted.” Well…speculation is meanwhile rife that Didi may be looking for a second seat, perhaps in Birbhum. How come? It was sparked off by none other than the Prime Minister. TMC strategists and Didi’s war-room aides vehement ly deny any such possibility. If Didi has the final say on this or anything else, the strategist is poised as a prime influencer of sorts. The influence seems gradually waning, though. As of now, the strategist is discouraging Urban Development Minister Firhad (Bobby) Hakim and MP Nusrat Jahan, both articulate TMC leaders, from campaigning in non-minority-dominated areas. Demands from candidates notwithstanding.

    The polarisation is that complete. Didi herself, however, brooks no such rules. Reciting Chandipath on stage and mentioning her gotra (duly mocked by the ‘Hyderabadi’) is no longer her focus as she vociferously courts the minority and SC/ST voters. Didi knows if the TMC cannot maximise its seats in Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Burdwan, the game would close in on her. The Morcha may not be making headlines, and may be laughed off as ‘old nostalgia’ with no electoral impact on the ground by the strategist, but Didi clearly thinks otherwise.

    When every vote counts, she cannot allow even a semblance of Muslim-Dalit alliance a partly novel idea in these parts, emanating from Abbas Baba, his Morcha, or Oswaisi’s acid tongue—break her wider social alliance. Particularly, when in Nadia, Hooghly, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, the BJP is mining local anger with a potent mix of religiosity, to its advantage. Tactically, Didi is now playing opposition politics to stop subaltern votes from deserting her. Didi can really get as bipolar as Bengal when she wants!

  • Deeply grieved by ‘dastardly’ attack on soldiers in Chhattisgarh: Mamata Banerjee

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday expressed grief over the death of 22 security personnel in a “dastardly” Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured jawans.

    She extended her condolences to the families of those martyred in the line of duty.

    “Deeply grieved at the dastardly attack on our soldiers in Chhattisgarh. My heartfelt condolences to the families of those martyred in the line of duty. I salute the supreme sacrifice made for the nation by these brave-hearts. Prayers for the speedy recovery of those injured,” she tweeted.

    Police recovered bullet-riddled bodies of 17 jawans in the jungles of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, raising to 22 the number of security personnel killed in a fierce gun-battle with Maoists the previous day — the biggest massacre in more than a year that also left 31 injured.

  • Mamata turned blind eye to coal scam, cattle smuggling: BJP

    Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari told a press meet that a highly placed member in state #39;s ruling party received Rs 900 crore from coal mafia and cattle smugglers.

  • PM Modi insulting women of Bengal by mockingly addressing Mamata Banerjee: TMC

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘’Didi-O-Didi’’ remark while attacking West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has become Trinamool Congress’s political tool to woo the women voters in the state who form 49 per cent of the total 7.2 crore electorates. The TMC on Sunday alleged the remark not only humiliated Mamata but also insulted Bengal’s women.

    While attacking the Bengal CM on the issue of the ruling party’s alleged corruption and barring the Centre schemes, Modi preferred to use his latest remark in all the rallies that he addressed in Bengal in the recent past. Aiming to gain the support of women electorates, Modi used the newly coined remark (a Bengali-styled call to draw attention) to highlight how Mamata deprived Bengal’s homemakers of the Centre’s drinking water project.

    ‘‘The way the Prime Minister used the remark is nothing other than a taunt. It is an insult to our chief minister, who is the only woman administrative head of a state across the country. He (Modi) also insulted Bengal’s woman by this remark. The way he utters the remark, sometimes lowering voice abnormally, doesn’t fit the Bengali style of seeking the attention of elder sisters,’’ said TMC minister Shashi Panja.

    A section of BJP leaders admitted that Modi’s Didi-O-Didi remark has not gone down well in the state. ‘‘The Prime Minister has good oratory skills and it catches the attention of the masses. The BJP, on most occasions, gets benefits from Modi’s speech. But his latest use of Didi-O-Didi for Mamata Banerjee has not gone well in the state’s women electorates,’’ said a leader of the saffron camp’s Bengal chapter.

    Sources in the TMC said it asked the party’s IT cell to circulate Modi’s latest remark portraying it as an insult to Bengal’s women.

    Eyeing the support of the women in Bengal, Mamata took several initiatives before the elections and floated a new slogan Bangla Nijer Meyeke Chay (Bengal wants its own daughter) to sharpen her attack on the BJP by branding her arch-rival as a party of outsiders. The slogan was aimed to portray Mamata as the chief ministerial candidate for the third-term in Bengal.

    ALSO READ | Is he god or superhuman: Mamata takes swipe at PM Modi for predicting BJP victory in assembly polls

    She launched a new health insurance scheme, Swastha Sathi, which was issued to the women member of a family. In the manifesto, Mamata announced monthly financial grant of Rs 500 and Rs 1,00 for the women belong to SC/ST community and financially backward class.

    ‘‘All these moves were to woo the women electorates. Even during her election campaign, she (Mamata) offers pranam to the feet of the women electorates as s symbol of gratitude when she describes her difficulty to address rallies with broken foot. When she is respecting the women of the state, Modi is insulting her with his Didi-O-Didi remark. We are going to miss this opportunity to strengthen our attempt to bring the women voters in our fold,’’ said a TMC leader.

  • Minorities in Bengal to vote for ‘credible’ TMC to stop BJP juggernaut: Muslim leaders

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: Allaying concerns that the wildcard entry of Abbas Siddiqui’s ISF may deal a blow to the TMC’s vote bank, Islamist leaders have asserted that a large section of the minority community would cast votes in favour of the party, as “there happens to be no other force capable of stopping BJP’s juggernaut” in Bengal.

    They, however, admitted that the Indian Secular Front (ISF), which has stitched an alliance with the Congress and the Left Front, might hold sway in certain pockets of West Bengal, as the rise of identity politics seems to have angered many residents of the state.

    “It is true that the minorities hold grievances against the state government for some reasons. But most of them would still vote for the TMC. They are not willing to experiment with choices as that could put their safety at risk,” Mohammed Kamruzzaman, the general secretary of All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, said here on Sunday.

    Barring a few areas, where the BJP has not been able to establish its presence, members of the minority community would not take any chance, he said.

    Minorities in Bengal have drawn lessons from the Bihar polls, where Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, having eaten into Muslim votes in several seats, emerged as one of the prime reasons behind the defeat of the RJD-led Grand alliance, Kamruzzaman, whose organization wields considerable influence on Muslim youth in the state, pointed out.

    Echoing him, political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said “minorities continue to be loyal supporters of the TMC.

    “In just about eight to ten seats in south Bengal, and a few in north Bengal, the TMC may be up for a direct contest with the ISF.

    Other than that, Muslims will vote en masse for the Mamata Banerjee-led party”.

    Several other imams, revered by the Muslim population in the state, also stressed that minorities should ensure that they exercise their franchise in favour of the “strongest secular candidate”.

    “In most places, the TMC happens to be the only secular and credible force.

    Notwithstanding their grievances, Muslims should think of the bigger picture.

    Efforts should be made to ensure that minority votes do not get divided,” Qazi Fazlur Rahman, who conducts prayer sessions on Eid at Red Road here, told PTI.

    Rahaman further said that imams at various mosques of the state have urged the faithful to vote for either the Mamata Banerjee camp or the strongest secular candidate in their respective areas.

    The ruling TMC, on its part, iterated that the ISF was nothing but a “B-team” of the BJP.

    “Parties like the ISF are no different from the AIMIM, both B-teams of the BJP.

    They might cause damage in a few seats, but Muslims are largely with us,” senior TMC leader Sougata Roy said.

    Siddiqui, who had on several occasions in the past rejected the TMC’s assertion, said the ruling party in the state has done more harm than good by making way for communal politics in the state.

    “It is TMC that has created an atmosphere of fear and paved for communal politics, with an eye on minority votes.

    It should be taught a lesson for its sins,” he told PTI.

    Siddiqui’s views were echoed by alliance partner CPI (M), which claimed that the Left Front never had to appease a specific community during its three-decade-long rule, unlike the TMC “which wanted to take a short cut to win the polls, after having done nothing for the development of Muslims”.

    The minorities, which comprise nearly 30 per cent of the state’s electorate, are a deciding factor in nearly 100 out of the 294 assembly seats of the state.

    The BJP, which has failed to breach the TMC’s minority strongholds, has been hoping that the ISF would be able to split Muslim votes, giving them an advantage.

    Since Independence, minorities in the state have voted in favour of the Congress to keep outfits such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jan Sangh at bay.

    During the late sixties, however, they gradually started drifting towards the Left forces, which cemented its base among minorities with ‘Operation Barga’ — a land-reform movement that benefited lakhs of sharecroppers.

    Things fell apart for the Left Front after the Sachar Committee report in 2008 painted a dismal picture of the living conditions of minorities.

    Add to that, the anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram and Singur projected the TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, as their new “saviour”.

    The Mamata Banerjee camp had been the sole beneficiary of minority votes since the Left Front’s exit in 2011, as Muslims have voted en bloc for the TMC, but its failure to control communal riots over the last six years did not go down well with a section of the community.

    According to the data released by the Union home ministry in 2018, religious violence has increased sharply in Bengal since 2015.

    The state had recorded 27 incidents of communal clashes in 2015, which went up to as many as 58 in 2017.

    That said, the absence of another strong political force that can take on the BJP, with talks of AIMIM-ISF alliance having hit the wall, will help the TMC pocket minority votes to a large extent.

    The Hyderabad-based All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has decided to field candidates from just 13 seats in Murshidabad district, a Congress stronghold.

    The BJP, which has made “TMC’s appeasement politics” as one of its poll planks, has contended that the party, if voted to power, would stop such practices.

    “We do not believe in politics of appeasement.

    .

    .

    All communities should be treated equally,” BJP state president Dilip Ghosh said.

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  • ‘Factually incorrect’: EC on Mamata’s claims about presence of outsiders at Nandigram polling booth

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: In a strongly worded rejoinder to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Election Commission has rejected her claim about the presence of outsiders at a polling booth in Nandigram as “factually incorrect” and “devoid of substance”.

    The EC sent the letter to Banerjee on Saturday in response to a complaint filed by her on April 1, when polling was held in Nandigram, alleging irregularities in the polling process.

    In its point-by-point rejoinder, the EC said Banerjee’s letter regarding booth capturing and the presence of outsiders at a polling booth in Boyal was “preceded by a massive coverage all over the country which showed dozens of audio-visual shots of your being in this polling station and literally hurling an avalanche of allegations on some officials working with the government of West Bengal itself, paramilitary forces and eventually the Election Commission”.

    Citing reports received from the ground, including its observers, the poll body said, “It is self-evident from the perusal of all the reports that the allegations mentioned in your hand-written note are factually incorrect, without any empirical evidence whatsoever and devoid of substance.”

    The commission said it is a matter of deep regret that a “media narrative was sought to be weaved hour after hour to misguide the biggest stakeholders, which is the voters, by a candidate who also happens to be CM of the state”.

    At least this should have been appreciated that the “side show” was fraught with immense potential to have an adverse impact on law and order across West Bengal and may be in some other states, it said.

    “And all this was being done when the election process was/is on. There could not have been a greater misdemeanour,” the letter stated.

    Banerjee, who is contesting the polls from Nandigram, had visited a polling booth in Boyal when polling was underway on April 1.

    According to Chief Electoral Officer Ariz Aftab, wheelchair-bound Banerjee was stuck in the booth for almost two hours as two groups raised slogans against each other.

    A large number of CAPF personnel and senior officers reached there and brought out the chief minister after bringing the situation under control.

    Later, Banerjee blamed outsiders for creating trouble.

    She also accused the EC of not acting on complaints of alleged irregularities in the polling process in Nandigram lodged by her party, Trinamool Congress.

  • Is he god or superhuman: Mamata takes swipe at PM Modi for predicting BJP victory in assembly polls

    By PTI
    KHANAKUL (WEST BENGAL):  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday wondered whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “god or a superhuman” to make claims of a BJP triumph in the assembly elections, six phases of which still remain.

    At an election rally in Hooghly district, the TMC boss, without naming the Indian Secular Front or its founder Abbas Siddiqui, also said the BJP is giving money “to a person” to eat into minority votes.

    “What do you (Modi) think of yourself, are you god or superhuman?” Banerjee said, referring to remarks by the PM at public meetings that he will attend the oath-taking ceremony of the BJP government in Bengal and request it to implement the PM Kisan Nidhi scheme as early as possible.

    Modi had also mocked the chief minister on Saturday, referring to some TMC leaders’ claim that Banerjee might contest elections from his Lok Sabha seat Varanasi in 2024, saying this proves that Didi has accepted defeat.

    The TMC supremo alleged that Modi’s recent visit to Bangladesh to commemorate its first prime minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth centenary year had led to rioting in the neighouring country.

    “There is a new person on the block who is trying to divide minority votes in the state and he is getting money from the BJP for this,” Banerjee said in a veiled reference to Siddiqui, whose ISF is fighting the elections in alliance with the CPI(M) and the Congress.

    “He keeps making communal statements but will not go far,” she asserted.

    Banerjee also claimed that Home Minister Amit Shah was instructing the Election Commission to transfer police officers in the state.

  • Mamata seen shaking injured leg in video sparks war of words between Trinamool, BJP

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: A purported video clip where Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is seen sitting on a wheelchair and moving her plastered leg back and forth has gone viral on social media, giving her rivals an opportunity to claim that she was playing up her injuries to win sympathy.

    The TMC, however, has condemned the “manner in which the party supremo has been insulted”, and said the rival BJP should learn how to respect women.

    PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.

    BJP spokesperson Pronoy Roy, who shared the 30-second clip on Facebook, said Banerjee should “stop putting up a drama over her injuries” to garner public support in the midst of the assembly elections.

    “This video grab which has surfaced on networking websites has not been filmed by anybody from the BJP. It was recorded by some TMC party workers. We want her to get back to normal life soon, we also pray for that. But she must stop putting up this drama by moving around in a wheelchair.”

    “If she was exercising her leg by shaking it then I suggest that she start walking as that will help her recuperate faster.”

    Taking a jibe at the chief minister, Rahul Sinha, a senior leader of the saffron party, said the TMC supremo’s bandage will not buy her votes.

    “The more she is losing confidence the bigger her bandage gets. People are not buying this. She must have forgotten which leg is injured, and shook the wrong foot. She has already lost the elections, the bandage won’t be able to save her from imminent defeat,” Sinha said.

    Taking strong exception to the remarks made by BJP leaders, state minister Shashi Panja said the saffron camp, by raising suspicion over Banerjee’s injuries, has not just insulted her but all the women of Bengal.

    “We condemn the manner the BJP is insulting our beloved CM. They are not just insulting our CM, but also the other women of the state. We urge them to show proper respect to the women of this state,” Panja said.

    Echoing her, former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, who joined the TMC recently, said if anybody was churning out lies, it was the BJP and not the TMC.

    “Are they (BJP leaders) trying to say that a whole lot of people involved (in treating her) including eminent doctors are lying? It’s only the BJP which is capable of speaking such lies. I’ve no doubt in my mind that they are the ones behind this (propaganda),” Sinha, who had served as the finance minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee cabinet, stated.

    TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh also hit out at the BJP and said that the people of Bengal will give the BJP a befitting reply for its “dirty politics”.

    “If they (BJP leaders) are spending so much time staring at Didi’s feet, they might as well fall on her feet. We condemn such politics that targets a woman who is holding campaigns sitting on a wheelchair, after being attacked. This shows that the BJP has lost its plot,” Ghosh said.

    Banerjee sustained injuries on her left leg, waist, shoulder and neck as she fell down after allegedly being pushed by miscreants in Nandigram on March 10.