Mamata says she will win Bengal on one leg, Delhi on two
Online Desk: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has charged the Indian Secular Front of “taking money from the BJP” and “help from Hyderabad” in a replication of the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh model to split minority votes in this state.
“Ek paye Bangla joy korbo, dui paye Delhi agami dine (Will win Bengal with one foot, will win Delhi with both feet in future),” Banerjee said on Monday calling the BJP a “devil in disguise” and “not a Hindu party”. “Its hatred for Muslims is not love for Hindus,” reports Times of India.
“They know nothing of Hinduism, neither do they understand Bengal’s culture or heritage. Bengal will not be governed by Gujarat, Bengal will be governed by Bengal. We live together, we will remain together,” she said, adding: “Traitors never win in Bengal.”
Banerjee then appealed to Hooghly’s voters not to let her down this time, apologising for the mistakes one Trinamool MLA may have made. “It will be a huge loss for the Trinamool if Hooghly does not vote for us this time,” she said, reminding voters that Hooghly was one of the districts to which the party owed its birth. The Trinamool led in only 10 of the 18 assembly segments in the district in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll; it led in 17 in the 2016 assembly poll.
“I apologise to you for any mistake Tapan (Dasgupta) may have made. He will not repeat them. I have spoken to him. He was there with me right from the beginning (when the party was formed),” she said, referring to Saptagram MLA Dasgupta at her first pre-assembly poll public meeting in Chinsurah.
But the main thrust of the Bengal CM’s speech was the ISF and the BJP’s efforts to split minority votes. “Thousands come to Furfurasharif,” she said at a rally in Hooghly’s Chanditala, barely 20 km from Furfurasharif. “But now a young man has stepped out of this place. He is a very good friend of the BJP. He has now joined hands with the CPM and the Congress after having taken what he could from the BJP. He is trying to divide minority votes. And he is trying to do this with help from Hyderabad. This is how they defeated (the opposition) in Bihar. This is the same way they took money from the BJP in Uttar Pradesh to ensure (the opposition’s) defeat,” the CM said. “But Bengal’s minority vote will not be divided, else there will be disaster,” Banerjee added.
Banerjee also returned the BJP’s corruption fire on Monday. “They blame our party for Saradha and Narada,” she said, referring to BJP MPs Babul Supriyo and Locket Chatterjee. “They have been nurtured (by these scams). Babul once said Saradha was Rose Valley’s first rose. Locket has been a locket for Rose Valley. But there is no case against them. Nothing happens to them,” she said, alleging that the BJP was “spraying money through hosepipes”.
“They contested in the Lok Sabha elections, they became MPs,” Banerjee said, referring to the two. “Now they will contest assembly elections. What is next: councillor, gram panchayat, school board? This only shows they do not have enough people. Half their candidates have been rented from the Trinamool Congress and the CPM,” she added.
The CM also said that her party had no place for people who were scared of opposition threats. “I will not tolerate cowardice. Ask my Kanyashree or Banga Janani women to be polling agents if necessary,” she told her party colleagues.
