‘Didi eyes Delhi, left Bengal to middlemen’: Modi on Mamata
SHARP ATTACK The PM said people should guard against Oppn ‘mahamilavat’ dispensation
KOLKATA/ RAIPUR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday lashed out at West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and took potshots at the attempts of the opposition parties to cobble up a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) against the BJP.
Addressing a public rally at Jalpaiguri in north Bengal, he attacked Mamata Banerjee and said that the Trinamool Congress chief is harbouring an ambition to lead a government in New Delhi, “leaving Bengal to middlemen and syndicate”.
“Didi is worried about moving to Delhi and she has left Bengal, the poor and middle class to be looted by the alliance of middlemen and syndicate,” PM Modi said at his third rally in week in the state.
Modi’s sharp attack at Banerjee comes at a time when the Centre and the West Bengal government are engaged in a bitter faceoff over action by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar on Sunday in connection with chit fund cases.
Banerjee had staged a threeday sit-in protesting the CBI action calling it a “misuse of cen- tral agencies” against political opponents by the Modi government. The political fight between the Bjp-led government and the TMC escalated after Banerjee held a ‘United India’ rally in January in Kolkata, where leaders from 23 opposition parties, including the Congress, shared the stage.
The prime minister responded to the charge leveled by Banerjee with a counter-attack. He said, “It is unprecedented that a chief minister sits on dharna to protect a person facing allegations of corruption.”
Pmmodi also accused the TMC government of resorting to violence against its political opponent. He said, “The people of Bengal voted for Didi to get rid of the violence of the communists. But the new government is following the same model of violence against its opponents.”
Banerjee’s TMC had defeated the Left Front government in West Bengal in 2011, ending more than three-decade rule of the coalition in the state.
The TMC was re-elected in 2016 state elections.
Earlier in the day, in his maiden public rally after BJP lost power in Chhattisgarh last year, Modi said top Congress leaders were embroiled in legal tangles.
He asked people to guard against this ‘mahamilavat’ (highly adulterated) dispensation.
“Most members of the (Gandhi) family are either out on bail or have obtained anticipatory bail,” the Prime Minister said, during the rally at Kodatarai in Raigarh district.
Congress has betrayed and cheated Chhattisgarh farmers over the loan waiver in the state, he said.
Loans of only those farmers who availed them from cooperat i ve and rural banks were waived, he said.
“What about loans of those who had borrowed from nationalised banks? Are they not entitled to the loan waiver,” he said.
“Why did the Congress not inform people about the criteria for the loan waiver? This is cheating,” he said.
“What about farmers who borrowed from ‘sahukar’ (private moneylender) and relatives. Who will waive their loans?... Congress has benefited ‘bichauliye’ (middlemen),” he said.
India’s poverty has started to decline due to efforts of the BJPled government, Modi said.