BJP engineering communal strife in Bengal to win polls: Mamata
Dhaniakhali (Hooghly): Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused the BJP of dividing Bengal "by creating communal tension" and destructing the state's culture of peace and harmony just for their political gains in the ongoing Assembly polls.
"Today Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home minister Amit Shah want to divide and destroy Bengal. But the people of Bengal want development and not riots," Banerjee said after comparing the saffron party's "nasty game of divisive politics" with that of "Banga Bhanga" of the British and recited Kazi Nazrul Islam's "Jater Nami Bojjati Sob, Jat Kaliyat Khelchi Jua".
In the same breath, the Trinamool Congress supremo alerted people from the minority community not to fall into the trap of "BJP's ally from Hyderabad (AIMIM) and another from Furfura Sharif (ISF)", stating that they are basically funded by the saffron camp to divide the minority votes.
"My minority brothers and sisters, keep one thing in mind that giving one vote to them means strengthening the hands of BJP and you all will be in the face of utmost danger if this saffron brigade comes to power. I would also like to urge my Hindu brothers not to get swayed away by the BJP's instigation to create Hindu-Muslim strife," she said while addressing a mammoth rally in support of her party's candidate from Tarakeswar Assembly constituency Ramendra Singha Roy on Saturday.
The TMC chief claimed that if elected to power in Bengal, the BJP will implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), forcing "many citizens to leave".
"They will divide West Bengal and its people. Remember how they deleted the names of 14 lakh Bengalis and 2 lakh Biharis in the updated NRC list in Assam," she said.
Stating that the incident of attack on one of her party workers Rabin Manna at Balarampur in Nandigram was an eye-opener, she said: "His family members were given shelter in the house of a friend from the minority community as his residence was ransacked by the BJP-backed goons. Manna is in coma at SSKM Hospital. I visited their house and his family members are in trauma as they have been threatened that their daughter would be kidnapped. All this is happening in Nandigram that once fought together, irrespective of religion, and ended the autocracy of the CPI(M)'s 'harmads'. Did Bengal ever witness all this? It is the outsiders brought in from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who are torturing the people here. Bombs and guns were brought from Mujaffarnagar and BJP men were carrying petrol bombs when I was inside the booth at Boyal in Nandigram on Thursday."
Taking a jibe at Modi, who held a rally just 15 km away in Hooghly district, Banerjee criticised his claims of better governance if a "double engine government" is formed in the state saying: "He gives tall talks of double engine government in Bengal when his own engine has seized due to his hasty decisions of 'notebandi' and 'bankbandi'."
Banerjee also took a dig at Tarakeswar's BJP candidate Swapan Dasgupta claiming him to be "an outsider" from Delhi who will go back soon after his defeat. On the other hand, her candidate is the son of the soil.
Banerjee came down heavily on the saffron camp for engineering communal strife while addressing all the three political meetings at Raidighi, Kulpi in South 24-Parganas and at Tarakeswar in Hooghly. She also led a roadshow in Howrah. "Everywhere starting from Hooghly, North and South 24-Parganas, the worst political party in the country is creating communal strife. Today not only the country, but the entire world is waiting for the day when people of Bengal will give a befitting reply to Modi as he believes in autocracy and not democracy," she said.
