Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday once again tore into the Election Commission of India, especially in the context of the panel’s silence on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches which were allegedly in gross violation of the model code of conduct.

“Modibabu, you have been frequently violating with disdain the model code. Even the Election Commission has been behaving like a puppet in Modi’s hands,” the Bengal chief minister told an election rally at Chinsurah in the Hooghly Lok Sabha
constituency.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had refused to entertain two PILs that sought a six-year bar on Modi from contesting polls on the grounds that he had invoked religion and delivered hate speeches during the ongoing election campaign.

A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice S.C. Sharma asked lawyers appearing for the petitioners why they had not approached the commission with the grievances, instead of directly approaching the court. The bench did not agree with the plea that
they were forced to approach the Supreme Court as the commission was not doing
its job.

“In the first place, why should elections be stretched out over nearly three months, obstructing development, simply to aid and support Modibabu?” asked the Trinamool Congress chief on Wednesday.

“I had never seen such a lengthy election, in terms of duration, before this. One election commissioner (Arun Goel) even resigned in protest against matters related to Bengal,” she added.

The Trinamool Congress chairperson reiterated her confidence in the BJP-led NDA’s defeat in the general election and in INDIA’s chances of forming the next Union government.

“They simply don’t have the numbers to win,” she said.

“The entire country has understood that the BJP is full of the biggest thieves. Four phases of polling have already concluded and the BJP is losing in all of them. In the remaining three phases as well, there isn’t much hope for the BJP,” she added.

“The BJP might continue to lie, but they will not be able to win. In their arrogance, they had claimed they would win more than 400 seats… the people are saying now that it won’t even be 200.”