Kolkata: BJP is a “party of cheats and liars” and has been speaking a “garbage of lies” to misinform the people of West Bengal, Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee said Monday, reacting to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comments about the state at a press conference in Santiniketan Sunday.
Banerjee said the BJP government at the Centre is “jealous” of West Bengal for “surging ahead”, which she claimed is why leaders from Delhi come to “divide” people.
Shah had alleged that the Bengal government was not allowing the implementation of the PM Kisan minimum income support scheme to be implemented in the state. But within 24 hours, CM Banerjee wrote to Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, urging him to transfer all the money allocated for Bengal’s farmers to the state coffers, after which her government would send the list of beneficiaries. This is the second letter to the agriculture ministry in the past four months, she said.
Banerjee also rebutted Amit Shah’s comments on the Ministry of Home Affairs’ transfer order to three IPS officers, saying the Narendra Modi government was trying to impose a “super emergency” by “terrorising” the officers. Her Trinamool Congress government is trying to have a dialogue with the Home Secretary and resolve the issue through discussion, not politics, the CM insisted.
Shah had lambasted the state government for poor economic development parameters, but Banerjee said the home minister was “ill-informed” and his claims were “factually incorrect”.
She added that she would soon put out a detailed rebuttal of Shah’s statement, and show that Bengal ranks top in social sector work and the MSME sector.
The rebuttal theme is set to go further — Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to hold a counter-roadshow in Santiniketan on 29 December, while her party’s poll strategist Prashant Kishor dismissed Shah’s prediction that the BJP would win over 200 seats by saying it would not be able to cross double digits. West Bengal’s 294-member assembly is set to go to the polls in a few months’ time.
No right to talk about Tagore, Vivekananda
Hitting out further at the Modi government, Mamata Banerjee said a party that only creates ‘division’ among people and spreads lies, has no right to talk about Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda.
“They are promising to build ‘Sonar Bangla’. Do they know the colour of sona (gold) or do they only understand the colour of tama (copper). They only know a lot about arms, ammunition and riots. I will not tolerate anyone who insults our Kabiguru Tagore. I will never bow down to these people,” Didi said at the state secretariat Nabanna Monday.
“They are jealous of Bengal. They cannot tolerate our state surging ahead, so they are spreading misinformation,” she alleged.
Then, addressing a pre-Christmas programme in central Kolkata, Banerjee said the Modi government is so “divisive” that it “cancelled” the Christmas holiday.
“December 25 should be a national holiday. It used to be one. Why did they cancel it? They do not respect secularism. Why did they hurt the sentiments of our Christian brothers and sisters?” she asked.
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