Purulia (WB), Jan 19: Terming the BJP as more dangerous than the Maoists, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused the saffron party of making false promises to the people before elections and vanishing after winning.
Claiming that the Trinamool Congress is not perturbed over desertions by some leaders, she said politics is a solemn ideology and philosophy and one cannot change these everyday like clothes.
“BJP is more dangerous than the Maoists,” Banerjee said while addressing a rally here in Purulia district, which was once a hotbed of the banned ultra-Left organisation.
Banerjee said the Maoists have come back to the mainstream in the state and that her government has given them jobs as special home guards.
TMC has inducted Chhatradhar Mahato,a former leader of Maoist-backed People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), who had hogged the limelight during the Lalgarh movement in the tribal-dominated Junglemahal area at the fag end of the erstwhile CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in the state.
Mahato was set free in February last year by the state government following reduction in his life term to 10 years by Calcutta High Court for his good conduct.
Facings flight of TMC MPs and MLAs to the BJP ahead of the state polls, she said “Those who want to join BJP can go, but we will not bow our heads to it.”
Terming the desertions as “good riddance”, she said these leaders would have disturbed the party if they remained in the TMC.
“There are three types of people in politics – lobhi (greedy), bhogi (those who enjoy power) and tyagi (abstainers from indulgence),” she said.
She claimed the BJP leaders misled tribals of the Jangalmahal area within which Purulia is situated, with false promises and did not come again for their welfare after winning Lok Sabha polls.
BJP candidates had won on all the seats in the Jangalmahal area including Purulia in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Comparing the BJP with a snake, the TMC supremo alleged that it annihilates anyone that comes into its grip.
Dismissing projections in pre-poll surveys, she claimed that “lies” are being dished out on behest of the BJP.
“TMC will get four times the number of seats that they are projecting,” she said, alleging that the BJP propaganda machinery was circulating fake videos in social media.
Accusing the BJP of disrespecting icons like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rabindranath Tagore, she said “they can’t even pronounce ‘Bangla’ properly, they say ‘Bangal’; they remember Bengal only when the elections come”.
Banerjee claimed that BJP leaders are going to the villages in West Bengal saying they have come from Delhi or Gujarat and want to have a meal at local people’s residences.
She claimed the BJP leaders are bringing food from five-star hotels to eat at the houses of poor villagers for publicity.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda had lunch at the residences of local people during their recent visits to the state in the run-up to the polls to 294-member assembly due in April-May.
Accusing the BJP, Congress and CPI(M) of being brothers in arms, she alleged the Left party has handed over its votes to the saffron party.
Left Front and the Congress have decided to fight Bengal polls together.
“Narendra Modi had promised Rs 15 lakh in every citizen’s bank account, but has anyone received a single Rupee?” she asked apparently refering to Modi’s assertions on return of black money to the country from outside.
She said farmers are agitating over their demands for repealing the farm laws for more than a month, while the peasants are happy in the TMC-ruled Bengal.
Picking up cudgels for a Bengal actor, against whom BJP leader Tathagata Roy has filed a police complaint for allegedly posting objectionable material in the social media, Banerjee warned against intimidation of anyone in Bengal for free speech.
She said class XII students in the state will get Rs 10,000 each in their bank account “within a day or two” for buying tablets or smartphones for their studies in the virtual mode.
Asserting that Purulia has never bowed to the outsiders, Banerjee said that the TMC government has done everything for the development of the adivasis, including formation of West Bengal Santhal Academy, apart from giving recognition to their language ‘Ol Chiki’.
Admitting that Purulia suffers from water supply problems, the chief minister said that projects worth thousands of crores of Rupees have been taken up by her government for supplying drinking water to every household.
Banerjee said that thousands of jobs will be created with the Dankuni-Amritsar freight corridor route passing through Raghunathpur in Purulia and an industrial park coming up in Joypur in the district.
Irked at some people raising demands during the meeting, the TMC supremo said that they should write to her office instead of creating disturbance at her public rallies.
“BJP is trying this mischief by sending some people at my public meetings to create disturbance,” she said, threatening to ask her party people to do the same at the saffron party’s or CPI(M)’s meetings.
The chief minister later assured these people of meeting their demands as far as possible. PTI
