BJP is turning country into ‘surveillance state’: Mamata
KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee, who has been under attack from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over post-poll violence in the state, mounted an offensive on Wednesday, accusing the BJP-led central government of turning the country into a “surveillance state” and appealing to regional parties to come together to form a unified Opposition front ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Banerjee asked the Supreme Court to take cognisance of allegations that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used in India to target prominent politicians, journalists, constitutional authorities and even sitting ministers.
“Pegasus is bigger than Watergate,” she said, referring to the Watergate scandal that led to US President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
“I definitely know that my phone was tapped… Only the judiciary can save democracy. Oust spying and save the nation,” Banerjee said in an hour-long virtual address on the TMC’s martyrs’ day, the party’s annual event in memory of 13 political workers killed in police firing at a protest she led as a Youth Congress leader in Kolkata on July 21, 1993. She founded the TMC five years later, in 1998.
Over the years, the martyr’s day rally has emerged as a platform from which Banerjee sends out messages and declares future plans.
She appeared to have stuck to this format on Wednesday as she issued a public appeal to opposition parties across the country to start working together for the national elections right away and promised free ration across the country if the alliance wins.
Banerjee suggested that she wasn’t looking for a key role for herself. “I am a worker. I will follow you and your instructions. Chairs do not last forever but love of the people lives on,” she said. Like last year, Banerjee addressed people virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic but for the first time, giant screens were installed in public places and TMC offices not only in West Bengal but also in states such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Assam.
TMC leaders have been speaking about plans to expand the party’s footprint to states outside Bengal after the party’s victory against the BJP in the Bengal assembly elections. She made effort to reach out to her potential audience outside Bengal and didn’t just speak in Bengali but English and Hindi as well.
In Delhi, leaders of several opposition parties assembled at the Constitution Club in the heart of the city to listen to her speech. Among those present were former finance minister P Chidambaram and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar. “I don’t know what will happen in 2024 but we have to start our planning now… We will not be defeated. I am confident we will win,” she said.
“Only two and a half years are left until the elections. Let us form an alliance and show the path to the nation,” Banerjee said to her potential allies.
Banerjee said her party will invite regional leaders to a rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade grounds after the pandemic. For now, Banerjee said, she will be in Delhi on July 27 to 29 and asked Sharad Pawar to convene a meeting. “Mr PM please don’t disturb us,” she added quickly, a swipe at the Centre over the snooping row.