Baishnabnagar (WB), Apr 2 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday vowed to drive the BJP out of the state first and then from Delhi, while alleging that the Election Commission is running the administration despite an elected government.
“It is my promise, I will drive out the BJP first from Bengal and then from Delhi,” the firebrand TMC leader said.
Addressing an election rally here, she condemned Wednesday’s gherao and attack on seven judicial officers in Malda, saying the central agencies, either the CBI or the NIA, will now take action on the Supreme Court’s orders.
“One should not indulge in such activities before elections. The whole state has been disgraced because of this incident,” Banerjee said, adding she favours peace and takes along people of all communities.
She accused the poll body of acting at the BJP’s behest, alleging development work in the state has stalled.
“The EC has doomed Bengal at the behest of the BJP; development work has stopped in the state,” Banerjee, who has repeatedly accused the poll body of being hand in glove with the saffron party, said.
“(Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah have taken the country on the path to ruin,” she said.
Maintaining that Modi had promised Rs 15 lakh in everyone’s bank account and two crore jobs each year, she said nothing has materialised.
“Never forgive the BJP and its two cohorts – Congress and the CPI(M),” she said, accusing the three parties of being in concert with each other.
She accused the Congress of being hand in glove with the BJP in Malda, maintaining that they shared one seat each in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls out of the district’s two constituencies.
“We do not have any Lok Sabha member from here, but we have still done development work in Malda,” the TMC chief said.
Accusing the Election Commission of having replaced all officers, including the chief secretary, the home secretary and the DGP of the state, Banerjee said, “They have changed everything, but will not be able to change me, because I have faith in my people, my brothers and sisters.” Claiming that names were deleted from voter lists during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) to potentially disenfranchise people, she said, “If we are in power, we will not allow even one person to be sent away.” Banerjee, who sat on a dharna for five days in protest against the deletion of voters’ names in the SIR exercise recently, said she fought for people’s rights and had also personally moved the Supreme Court over the issue.
“No other party besides the TMC took up the cudgels for upholding people’s rights,” she said, urging those whose names were deleted to appeal to the tribunal.
“I strongly ask everyone not to attack any judge on behalf of any political party,” the TMC supremo asserted, maintaining that such acts give Bengal a bad name.
She claimed that some political outfits were acting as stooges of the BJP and trying to divide minority votes.
“If they feel so much pain for the minorities, why don’t they speak up when migrant workers from Bengal face atrocities in other states or when people’s names get deleted in SIR?” she asked.
The TMC chief also accused AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, without naming him, of associating with the BJP to divide Muslim votes, which have been a mainstay of the TMC’s support base in West Bengal. PTI AMR MNB
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