Mamata Banerjee on Friday put the Narendra Modi Government on notice saying the BJP’s life was limited and that “they will not last beyond 2019.”
Fresh with a landslide victory in two by-elections in Bengal where the saffron outfit occupied the second slot displacing the Left Front, Banerjee singled out the BJP for not only placing a “preposterous Budget” but also “polarising people” through false social media campaigns and making shameless use of money power in elections.
“This is a hasty Budget placed in sheer desperation and panic. It is clear that they have tried to give false promises with no intention to deliver on them. The hidden fact is that this is a rich man’s Budget where more or less all sectors have been cheated. They have tried to bamboozle the people in the name of health schemes. There is no hope of job creation,” she said.
Attacking the BJP for a “secret understanding with the Left Front and the Congress she said, “the by-elections results have shown that even if all the three parties unite they cannot defeat Trinamool Congress. In fact these three parties are working in tandem to defeat us. The BJP is pouring money and the CPI(M) and Congress manpower to defeat us but they will not succeed.”
Coming down heavily on the saffron outfit for trying to break the electorate along communal lines, Banerjee said, “there has been sustained disinformation and hate campaign in social media, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter so that the electorate gets polarised. But that will yield no result in Bengal and the BJP will be defeated in 2019 elections signs of which are already evident from the elections taking place everywhere in the country.”
She also issued a veiled threat to “those backing the saffron forces” to watch out their future when the BJP goes out of p ower. Even a section of media men “who have their families to live on peacefully are peddling views instead of news. They should watch out their steps,” she said.
In an apparent bid to turn her weakness into strength Banerjee wondered why no action in relation to chit fund was being taken against the Left and Congress. “Why the Left and the Congress have been left out by the CBI and ED? Why only Trinamool Congress leaders are targeted. Why no action is taken against Manik Sarkar (Tripura Chief Minister) under whose rule Rose Valley scam flourished. This because the BJP is in favour of the perpetrators of chit fund scamsters and against Trinamool which is fighting for the people’s cause.”
In what her critics promptly read “dynastic designs” Banerjee said she had a hundred year plan for Bengal where she had already created a generation that would rule for 50 years and “after me Abhishek Banerjee (her nephew and MP) and others will follow suit and prepare plans for the next 50 years.”