Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday refused to give any credit to the Narendra Modi-led government for the arrest of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi in London and termed it a “got-up match”.
“This is a ploy of the BJP. The credit must go to the London Telegraph journalist who exposed Nirav Modi. It is a got-up match. No credit goes to the BJP government,” Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat, Nabanna. Calling the businessman’s arrest a “strike” by the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress supremo said there will be a number of such “strikes” by the Centre during the general elections.
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“You will see many such ‘strikes’ during the time of elections. You have seen a strike on Nirav Modi. There will be two-three similar strikes. All these are made up like a film script. They (Centre) have done this intentionally,” she said. “You (the Centre) cannot see where he is hiding. Now a journalist is giving you information about where he is staying. Don’t we know what is going on behind the curtains? It has been exposed that the main thief is behind the curtain,” Banerjee said, making a veiled reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Banerjee said the BJP government’s ploys would not yield much benefit as its “expiry date” was already over. “This government has no credibility. I have said before that its expiry date is already over. We do not need their ‘medicines’. We do not consume medicines that have passed their expiry dates,” she said. “I do not give them any credit. There is another man. I do not want to mention his name. He is also there. They are not Indian citizens now. There are so many people with a lot of property,” she alleged.
Taking a swipe at Modi for calling himself the “chowkidar” (watchman) of the country, Banerjee said it was more important to be loyal to the nation and maintain peace than turning oneself from a “chai-wala to chowkidar”. Fourteen months after he fled India, Nirav Modi was on Wednesday arrested in London on charges of defrauding on a huge loan taken from the Punjab National Bank (PNB), official sources said. The police made the arrest seven days after the London Westminster Court issued an arrest warrant against the businessman, who left India days before the scam came to light in January 2018.