BJP has lost faith in its Bengal leaders, importing functionaries from outside: TMC

Kolkata: Reacting to the bevy of BJP functionaries being brought to Bengal ahead of the ensuing Assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday alleged that the party is importing them from outside as its central leadership has lost faith in the ability of the saffron party's local leaders.

Veteran TMC leader and the party's MP, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here said: "The BJP central leadership has imported functionaries from other states since they do not have faith in the local leadership."

Speaking about the circulation of fake news, she opined that the saffron party has an "assembly line for manufacturing lies" which are circulated through its propaganda machinery. "WhatsApp groups are being created to spread fake news and canards. They (BJP) have realised that the people of Bengal are not with them and have rejected them," said Ghosh Dastidar, the three-time MP from Barasat constituency.

With an eye on the state Assembly elections due in April-May 2021, the BJP has divided the state into five organisational zones and appointed central leaders in charge of those.

"The BJP has no leader in Bengal, while the state has produced the country's best Chief Minister in Mamata Banerjee. There is no one comparable to her," she said.

The TMC leader further alleged that while Dalits and women are being attacked in different places of the country including Hathras in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, its leaders are having food at the homes of such people ahead of elections.

"It's not 'Beti bachao beti padhao' that they are pursuing but in reality, it is 'beti jwalao' (burn) that they believe in," Ghosh Dastidar, who had gone to Hathras as part of a TMC delegation of parliamentarians, said.

A 19-year-old Dalit woman, whose death in a Delhi hospital two weeks after she was gang-raped sparked protests and anguish, she was cremated near her home in Hathras in the dead of the night in September this year.

Ghosh Dastidar also said that women in Bengal are making advances in education and trafficking has stopped under the stewardship of Mamata Banerjee.

Moreover, Dalits and minorities are the worst-off during the present BJP regime and the party has divided the people of the country, alleged Ghosh Dastidar.

Reiterating how the BJP-led government at the Centre has failed to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic in the country, the TMC MP said that it should resign.

The government had been warned in Parliament way back in January about the outbreak of the disease and was urged to take preventive steps, "but the Centre did not take any action, while a nationwide lockdown was announced on a four-hour notice when things went out of control", she said.

Elucidating on the measures taken by the Bengal government to help the migrants amid the pandemic, the TMC leader said that Mamata Banerjee is the only Chief Minister in the country to have paid for the fare of migrant workers to the Railways to bring them back home.

"Mamata Banerjee has given free ration to the people of the state in advance, but what has the Centre done?" she asked. Continued on P4