Senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday alleged that the BJP was opposed to the ethos of Bengal and called upon the people to reject the saffron party.
Addressing an election rally in Birbhum district in support of party candidate Satabdi Roy, the Trinamool Congress national general secretary alleged that the Narendra Modi government is yet to release money for the 100 days' wages of the poor job-card holders of the state.
"Don't vote for the BJP. They are anti-Bengal. They lack reverence for luminaries like Swami Vivekananda, they smash the bust of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, they don't know where Rabindranath Tagore was born," Banerjee, the de-facto number two in TMC hierarchy, said.
At a second public meeting in Jamalpur in support of Bardhaman Purba contestant Dr Sharmila Sarkar, Banerjee accused the BJP of branding "fish eaters as anti-Hindu." "The BJP doesn't have any idea about unique religious habits and rituals among different communities. They don't know pluralism. Will you decide whom I should speak, with whom to walk?," he asked.
On the issue of seven-phase elections in West Bengal, he said, "We were not in favour of conducting elections over such a long period in such sweltering heat. But BJP wants to trouble people, they want people to suffer. This shows their anti-Bengal attitude." Accusing the BJP of harassing and intimidating its political opponents like the TMC, he said, "Since we counter the challenge of the BJP in Bengal, they have deployed central agencies after me and my family." "From my elderly parents to my wife, all immediate members of my family have been repeatedly harassed by CBI and ED but nothing could be found. Why target my family who don't have any links with politics?" he added.
Earlier speaking on the MGNREGA issue at Dubrajpur, Banerjee asked, "Why haven't you (BJP) released any white paper on this." "Why you are silent on our demand for a white paper which will contain details if any funds had been actually released for the lakhs of job-card holders who had toiled hard for years for rural development projects and yet to get a single paisa from the Centre," he said.
On Modi's claim that the last 10 years of his rule was just a trailer and there was much more in store, Banerjee said, "Before 2014, the price of an LPG cylinder was Rs 400. Now, it costs Rs 1,000. If such symptoms of "achhe din" (good days) are evident in the trailer, one can only speculate about the trajectory of the full film." "While our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had rolled out a slew of social welfare projects such as Kanyashree, Rupashree, Lakshmir Bhandar, etc, Modi's promise of depositing Rs 15 lakh in everyone's bank account still remains unfulfilled," he said.
He said the TMC will make a clean sweep in north Bengal while repeating its stellar performance in rest of the state in remaining phases of polls.
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