Raniganj/Asansol: Miffed over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s disclosure that she sends him kurtas and sweets, a vitriolic Mamata Banerjee Friday said that the people of Bengal will offer him ‘rosogollas’ made of clay with fillings of gravel instead of votes. The Trinamool Congress supremo had earlier said that the BJP will score a ‘big rosogolla’, also invoked in the state to mean score zero in examination due to the shape of its famed sweet, in the ongoing general elections from West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha.
“Narendra Modi is coming to Bengal regularly to seek votes. But the people will give him rosogollas made of clay with fillings of gravel; his teeth will break if he tries to take a bite,” Banerjee said at a rally at Raniganj. Banerjee had earlier said that Modi has made a “political issue” of the “courtesy” shown by her by making public that she sends sweets to him.
Claiming that Modi does not suit the position of prime minister, she said “I have never seen such a prime minister, making below standard remarks.” Asking BJP not to politicise the name of Lord Ram, she said “Hindus or Muslims do not indulge in riots, it is RSS which does it.”
She alleged that before Modi came to power, there was no communal strife in Asansol or Raniganj and accused BJP of bringing money from neighbouring Jharkhand and creating trouble in West Bengal.
Communal tension gripped the two industrial and mining towns during Ram Navami celebrations in 2018. On Modi’s claim of ‘goondagiri’ (strong-arm tactics) by her, Banerjee said “He does not even know how to talk about a woman.”
She accused that BJP candidate in Asansol, union minister Babul Supriyo of “audacious behaviour” and urged people not to vote for him. The singer-turned politician, who won the Asansol seat in 2014 and went on to become a union minister of state in the Narendra Modi government, had at one time shared a friendly relationship with the West Bengal chief minister. He had even raised eyebrows in political circles by having “phuchkas” (panipuris) with Banerjee in front of the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata after being given a lift in her car on way to the Raj Bhavan in May 2015.