Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said the BJP had lost Bihar as her government had thwarted an alleged attempt to topple the JMM-led Jharkhand dispensation through the recent arrest of three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand with a large amount of cash.

A fiercely aggressive Trinamul Congress chairperson asserted that the saffron camp would lose several more states in the near future, before getting ousted from the Centre in 2024.

“Did you notice that just as I saved Jharkhand, they lost Bihar? The BJP fled Bihar. Wait and watch, more laddus from the BJP’s bucket will be taken out one by one. In 2024, there will be no ED or CBI with the BJP,” Mamata said on Sunday evening, while addressing a gathering at a preIndependence Day event in Behala here.

“I did not allow the BJP to topple the Jharkhand government. It is the credit of Bengal. It is also the credit of Bengal police. We caught the thieves redhanded,” she added.

Political observers said Mamata’s comment in the context of Bihar and Jharkhand, and her forecast for other states were significant.

She mounted a scathing offensive against the BJP and the way it had allegedly been trying to dismantle mandates in states with Oppositionled governments, going on about Jharkhand.

Mamata was referring to the arrests of three Congress MLAs from Jharkhand late last month, with unaccounted cash of Rs 49 lakh, while they were travelling to their home state from Calcutta.

Trinamul alleged that the three Congress MLAs were carrying the money they had allegedly received from the BJP, as part of an Operation Lotus attempt in Jharkhand.

The CID took over the case and raided the houses of those three Congress MLAs and seized more money and cars.

“You gave Rs 10 crore each (to MLAs) to topple the government in Jharkhand, and we caught you redhanded. I will not disclose everything in the middle of the investigation, but those three MLAs who were arrested disclosed the deals. Did you engage the ED or CBI in this probe? You will not do so in this case,” said Mamata.

She also reacted sternly to allegations of a “setting” between her and the BJP, levelled by the Congress and the CPM, over her Delhi trip and meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, last week.

“A few people shout ‘setting, setting’ if I go to Delhi. Will I not go to the meeting of NITI Aayog? Will I not raise demands for our state? How will we get the money (for the state) otherwise? It is our money, after all,” she said, promising that she would never bow down before the BJP at any cost as she wanted to ensure its ouster from the country.

“I will visit Delhi a thousand times to demand (money for central schemes).... There is no issue of ‘setting’ when the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury or a Congress chief minister goes to Delhi. The ‘setting’ theory keeps coming up whenever it is me,” she said, going on to attack the CPM and the Congress over their alleged political role in Bengal.

She also called for a new freedom struggle from August 16 — the day her party now observes as Khela Hobe Diwas — to intensify the attack on the BJP through a long series of protests.

“I promise on the eve of Independence Day, I will die but will not bow down before the BJP. We will fight, we will die but we will reconquer India, defeating them. We will struggle again for our hardearned freedom, that has been snatched by them (the BJP),” said Mamata.