With dynasty on his lips, Narendra Modi stepped up the attack on the Trinamul and the Congress as he dragged the Gandhi and Banerjee families during his Vijay Sankalp rally speech in North Bengal on Saturday.
“Trinamul has concerns about the nephew. The Congress leaders have to push the interests of the sons and daughters of its royal dynasty. The Left has to balance between the two,” said Modi. “They are not worried about the future of your children.”
Saturday’s public meeting at Kawakhali, about 10 km from Siliguri town, was Modi’s fourth visit to the state since the beginning of March, ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll dates.
In the three meetings that he had addressed earlier in south Bengal’s Arambagh, Krishnagar and Barasat, Modi had focused on alleged corruption in the Trinamul rank and file, and its interference in implementing centrally-sponsored schemes in Bengal.
Today’s rally was the first instance when Modi made personal references, but without taking names.
The Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been the loudest critic of the Narendra Modi government in the last ten years and was even expelled from the Lok Sabha. His status as an MP was restored following an intervention by the Supreme Court. On the other hand, the Trinamul's all-India general secretary and chief minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, has been questioned by central agencies in connection with a coal scam and was also summoned in the teachers' recruitment scam.
“I don’t have to leave behind a bank balance, cars and bungalows,” said Modi, around whom the BJP has launched a national family campaign. “When I see people residing in pucca houses with all amenities that gives me the most satisfaction.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi being greeted by ex-judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay, who has joined BJP, during a public meeting at Kawakhali ground, in Siliguri, Saturday, March 9, 2024. PTI
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had won seven of the eight seats in the region that helped the party bag 18 seats, its highest tally till date from the state.Though the party failed to repeat the performance in the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP is expecting a repeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The 42 seats in Bengal are crucial to BJP’s push to cross the 400-seat mark along with the NDA allies.
Of the 20 seats in Bengal, for which the BJP announced its nominees, only one sitting MP, John Barla, has been replaced, by BJP MLA Manoj Tigga. The nominees for three other seats which are held by the BJP — Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Raigunj — are yet to be announced. There is a possibility that both the incumbent MPs will be changed this time.
Like in his previous public meetings, Modi raised the Sandeshkhali issue as well.
“The entire country is talking about what happened in Sandeshkhali. Committing atrocities on women, robbing the poor people of their hard earned money is what the Trinamul extortionists have done. Neither the Left nor the Trinamul cared about the people of North Bengal and their needs. Only the BJP has looked after them,” Modi said.
On Sunday, Mamata Banerjee will wield the microphone at the Jonogorjon (Public Uproar) rally at Calcutta’s Brigade Parade ground, from where she will launch the party’s campaign for the Lok Sabha polls and will counter Modi’s campaign against the Trinamul. The Bengal chief minister could also announce the names of the candidates for the Lok Sabha polls.
Modi also rolled out a list of centrally-sponsored schemes that he claimed the Trinamul government had obstructed from implementing in Bengal.
Abhijit Ganguly, the former Calcutta high court judge who had ordered probes by central agencies into several cases of corruption, was present at the Siliguri rally of Modi.
