Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged that the BJP had set Manipur alight and engineered communal riots there and drew parallels between the current situation in the northeastern state and what the saffron camp had done in Kashmir.

“Today, you have seen, the BJP has set fire in Manipur. The people cannot even get out on the streets. The people have been gutted in this fire. How many people actually died in this, there is no real assessment,” the Bengal chief minister said while addressing a gathering at Birbhum over the phone.

The rally has been called as part of the Trinamul Congress’s campaign for the July 8 rural polls. Mamata addressed the meeting over the phone as she was recovering from injuries he had suffered while alighting from a helicopter after an emergency landing near Siliguri last week.

“They engineered communal riots in Manipur, pitting one community against another,” Mamata said.

At least 138 people lost their lives in the Manipur violence that began on May 3. Although mostly Hindu Meiteis and predominantly Christian Kukis have a long history of ethnic strife, the clashes in the past two months assumed communal overtones, evident from the burning of hundreds of churches.

On Monday, Mamata drew parallels between the BJP-led Centre’s handling of the current Manipur crisis and the Jammu and Kashmir situation, presumably since August 2019.

“The BJP today has finished the nation. They finished Kashmir. They finished Manipur. Now they are very envious of Bengal because it lives in peace,” said the Trinamul chairperson.

She has been accusing both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah of inertia on Manipur.

Maharashtra

In her first public reaction to the latest developments in Maharashtra politics, Mamata said: “You saw what happened in Maharashtra. Those who are involved in the corruption of crores and crores were taken in by the BJP.”

She was referring to the mutiny by NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s nephew Ajit Pawar.

“Once those corrupt people joined the BJP, they turned white from black immediately by virtue of the washing machine. In case of us (Trinamul)..., they immediately unleash the CBI or the ED to hound us,” she added.