BJP national vice-president Shivraj Singh Chouhan Thursday hit out at the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal and said no new industry would come to the state as long as she helmed it.
"The Trinamool Congress has imposed the Trinamool Tolabaji Tax (Triple T) in West Bengal. Will any industry come?" Chouhan told a press conference here echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's words at his Durgapur rally on Februray 2.
In local parlance, 'tolabaji' is roughly understood as an act of organised extortion.
"Add to the triple T the fourth T - that is terror by Mamata Banerjee (government)," he said.
He took a swipe at the Banerjee government's slogan of 'Bengal means business' for the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS), whose fifth edition commenced Thursday, saying "What kind of business is she talking about?"
Chouhan said the West Bengal government has already held four BGBS and he has been told that promises of investing Rs 10 lakh crore had been made by the industry captains. "But did even Rs 5,000 crore come?" he asked.
Banerjee has "failed" to keep her poll promise to reopen the large number of closed industrial units in the state, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said, adding that 55,000 industries were closed when she came to power (in 2011).
Inaugurating the fifth edition of the BGBS during the day, the West Bengal chief minister said a new industrial policy would be formulated if the government at the Centre changes after the Lok Sabha polls.
She also urged the industrialists who have left the country to return and invest in it.
Banerjee, a strident critic of the BJP and the prime minister, has called for ousting it in the coming Lok Sabha polls for "dividing the country on religious lines" and held a united opposition rally of 23 political parties in the city on January 19.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)