Mamata Banerjee wished on Monday that Narendra Modi’s Independence Day address to the nation on Tuesday from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi — a prime ministerial privilege — turns out to be his last and someone from the 26-party anti-BJP bloc INDIA addresses next year's speech on August 15.
The chief minister was addressing an Independence Day-eve event at Behala here.
“Let this be the most venerable Modibabu’s final address from the ramparts of the Red Fort. In the future, Team INDIA will take the field and… Khela Hobe (the game is on),” she said to loud cheers from the audience.
“Remember, we are not independent today. Let us, at midnight, pledge together that Team INDIA is able to hoist the national flag at the Red Fort on August 15 next year, and save the nation with slogans of Jai Hind and Vande Mataram. Save India, save humanity... save the country,” added the Trinamul chief, referring to the INDIA alliance that she is a principal constituent of.
She asserted that with people’s blessings, INDIA would win the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
“… In the elections that will take place after six months or so, Team INDIA will win, Bharat will win. Nobody should be able to stop us,” said Mamata.
She was quick to add that she was not angling for the prime ministerial chair.
“Bengal is marching ahead. Bengal does not want the chair,” said Mamata.
“The chair will be lost (by them). We will thoroughly cleanse and sanitise it with cow dung, and establish a truly independent government in the name of democracy,” she added, in what was apparently a jibe at the militant bovine worship culture of the saffron camp.
Mamata lashed out at the increasing propensity to publicly hail Nathuram Godse as a hero for having murdered Mahatma Gandhi on occasions such as Independence Day.
“Despite our long, glorious struggle for freedom, we are not really free now…. They do not speak of Gandhiji today, just imagine, but of those that murdered him,” Mamata said. "The truth about our past, our realities, our history, we must not be allowed to be deprived of, or forget. We must always stay awake, alert,” she added, referring to the saffron ecosystem’s attempts to rewrite the history of the Indian subcontinent, to further its far-Right, Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan agenda. Evoking William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, she said: “‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.... The more we live in fear, the worse their atrocities will get.”
“Manipur weeps, Haryana weeps, Uttar Pradesh weeps, Jammu and Kashmir weeps… how can I take pride in being part of an independent nation?” she asked.
She went on to punch holes into the lofty claims by Modi and others with regard to the "Gujarat model", drawing comparisons based on NITI-Aayog data, to assert Bengal was doing exponentially better on many key parameters of welfare and human development.
“If they are a model, we deserve a medal…. Instead of gareebi hatao (wipe out poverty), you have carried out a gareeb hatao (wipe out the poor) programme,” she said.
