West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi from two public meetings in north Bengal – one at Nagrakata of Jalpaiguri and another in Cooch Behar Rashmela Maidan.
Banerjee’s speech in the first meeting at Nagrakata was almost entirely in Hindi – possibly due to the fact that a number of electorate in this belt are Hindi-speaking, especially workers in the tea gardens. “Hum se jo takrayega, choor choor ho jayega,” she said, drawing huge applause.
But it is also something that Banerjee has been doing in recent times in order to reach out to a larger audience beyond Bengal as well as to indicate her national political ambitions. She has also been participating in rallies and meetings outside Bengal – the most recent being in Vizag with N Chandrababu Naidu and another one in Assam a few days ago.
“Bengal will help form the government at the Centre in this election,” she said, adding that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would lose from most states in the country. “They will lose from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Northeastern states…” Banerjee said while the BJP was releasing its party manifesto in Delhi.
Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar will go to the polls in the first phase on April 11 and Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Raigunj will vote on the second phase on April 18.
She warned people about the implementation of the NRC and how it would strip many valid citizens and residents of Bengal of their citizenship. “They are wooing people with money for attending meetings too. But what will happen to these people when election season is over?” she asked.
Banerjee said PM Modi could not touch Bengal, nor win over its people.
