{"id":5044,"date":"2019-04-03T20:04:30","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T14:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/34.22.110.190\/english\/?p=5044"},"modified":"2021-01-05T03:12:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T21:42:35","slug":"pm-modi-versus-cm-mamata-round-one-high-drama-over-victory-in-bengal-and-delhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/pm-modi-versus-cm-mamata-round-one-high-drama-over-victory-in-bengal-and-delhi\/","title":{"rendered":"PM Modi versus CM Mamata: round one high drama over victory in Bengal and Delhi"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Bengal today witnessed three high voltage public rallies to kick-start the Lok Sabha polls in the state: two of these were addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Siliguri and Kolkata and the third by chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Cooch Behar\u2019s Dinhata.<\/p>\n

Modi went on an all-out attack on Banerjee, mentioning surgical and air strikes, and anti-satellite missile to showcase India\u2019s \u201cprogress\u201d and pointed out that the Bengal CM had called it \u201cdrama\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also attacked the Congress, saying that promises made in the party\u2019s manifesto would strengthen the hands of the enemy, and make the country\u2019s security forces vulnerable. \u201cThe Congress has always bowed down before terrorism for the sake of votebank politics,\u201d Modi said. In both his meetings in Siliguri<\/span> <\/a>and Kolkata, the thrust of Modi\u2019s attack and arguments were similar. He added that Bengal had always showed the way to the country, and that people in the state would vote for the Bharatiya Janta Party.<\/p>\n

Mamata Banerjee \u2013 who had re-scheduled her April 4 meeting in north Bengal by a day to literally \u201chave the last word\u201d \u2013 today challenged the PM from the stage of her public meeting in Dinhata. She said that Bengal would contribute to changing the government in Delhi this time. She said she didn\u2019t require PM Modi\u2019s certificate on \u201cnationalism\u201d. She also seemed to question the Election Commission\u2019s silence on Narendra Modi\u2019s repeated mention of the army and jawans in his election rallies where the EC has already warned that armed forces cannot be used for election campaigns.<\/p>\n

Banerjee challenged Modi to face her in a public meeting. \u201cHe can ask me whatever he wants,\u201d she said. The Bengal CM said that demonetisation had made the ruling party so rich that they were spending Rs 100-200 crore per meeting. \u201cWe have never heard of hangers in the Brigade Parade Grounds in Kolkata,\u201d she added. The BJP had arranged for hangers in the ground as a protective shield from the sun for those who had come to attend the meeting.<\/p>\n

Banerjee said that if the BJP were voted to power again, they would change the Constitution and not conduct elections in future. However, she called PM Modi as \u201cMr Expiry PM\u201d with a twinkle in her eyes, to imply that his tenure as the Prime Minister was well over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Banerjee challenged Modi to face her in a public meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":5045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}