India needs a leader like Mamata: TMC leaders

MIDNAPORE (WB): Giving a call to oust the BJP, Trinamool Congress leaders on Saturday said the people of India needed a leader like Mamata Banerjee who worked for all, including farmers and women.

They reiterated the “BJP hatao, desh bachao” slogan given by Banerjee during the martyrs’ day rally in Kolkata last week and said that a pledge needed to be taken to win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Addressing a rally at the same ground where Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting on July 16, TMC MP Abhishek Bandopadhyay said Banerjee had set a target for the party to defeat the saffron party in 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Bandopadhyay said the TMC had formed a “syndicate of the people” to usher in development in the state and to bring peace in the erstwhile Maoist-affected areas and Darjeeling hills.

He was referring to Modi’s attack against the TMC government, charging it with “throttling democracy” and running a “syndicate raj” without whose approval nothing moved.

“We have also formed a syndicate to oust the BJP from the Centre,” Bandopadhyay, who is a nephew of Banerjee, said.

Dismissing the BJP’S charge that the TMC chief resorted to appeasement of the Muslims, he sought to know what the prime minister had done for the Hindus.

“The Centre had taken ‘Namami Gange’ (National Mission for Clean Ganga) project (out) with fanfare at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore but not a pond was cleaned. Mamata had done many things for the Hindus, including developing Gangasagar, building skywalk at Dakshineswar temple and renovating Tarakeswar temple,” he said.

Bandopadhyay claimed that although the highest number of farmer deaths were reported in Maharashtra during the past six months, Modi chose to hold a rally for welfare of peasants in Bengal where not a single farmer had died.

Accusing the BJP of creating a rift between the Hindus and the Muslims, he said, “We will not let that happen”.