Mamata takes Centre to task over ‘divisive politics’

Banerjee also warned the Centre not to play politics over religion in a country like India, where peace and harmony is the strongest social fabric and people from various communities and religions coexist in harmony. The Chief Minister was at a program to inaugurate various welfare projects for minorities at Netaji Indoor Stadium.

Without taking the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Banerjee said that his presence was only felt in social media websites, like Facebook and Twitter. 

“Overall development of people is not the motto of the Centre. Their main purpose is to incite religious sentiments. We do not want riots. People here in Bengal love peace and they do not want riots.”

The Chief Minister also hit out at the Centre for failing to work for the minorities in the country. She said that the Centre has denied scholarship to over five lakh people, and asked her MPs to raise the issue and seek clarifications on why the minority students were deprived of the Centre’s assistance.

Banerjee said: “The Centre had formed a portal for minority development but it has been lying defunct for the last one year. Why don’t you repair the web portal which is the medium for providing scholarships to the students? 

Candidates cannot submit their applications through the portal. You are not giving money to the people on the pretext of the portal not functioning. But our state stands first in terms of the amount of scholarships distributed among minority students.”

Referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre, she also said: “You will neither perform and nor allow others to perform. Your only object is to promote  fundamentalists. The Centre has no work apart from giving advertisements.”

“People in our state will not tolerate those who incite religious sentiments. I urge the people not to get provoked by what the BJP is saying.  People from all religions and communities stand united here and they will not tolerate divisive politics of the Centre,” the chief minister added.