KOLKATA: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Sunday accused the BJP of making inroads in the state through "money, police and EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) and said in the coming assembly elections, they will "lose everything". Demanding the ballot box back, she said the Lok Sabha election earlier this year was "a mystery, not history".
At a mega rally in Kolkata Sunday afternoon, the Chief Minister also issued a warning: "Some BJP leader has said 'Pull TMC leaders off the bus'. I say to the BJP - if we react in kind, will you be able to withstand?"
"What fight by the BJP? Who are they? No one in Bengal knows them. Only RSS goons are doing dirty work through schools... In Bihar, the government has told the police to monitor RSS activity. We have not asked the police. They should be aware," she warned the BJP, which won 18 of the state's 42 seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha election.
While Martyrs' Day - a tribute to the people killed in police firing during her rally in 1993 - is an annual event, Sunday's rally at the heart of Kolkata is seen as a launchpad for the assembly election campaign.
Before the lakhs attending the rally, the TMC supremo gave a point by point refutal to the BJP accusations against her party and government.
On the BJP demand that the Chief Minister returns the "cut money" amassed by her partymen, Mamata thundered: "Cut money? You are asking TMC to return cut money? Give us back the promised 15 lakh black money".