Mamata Banerjee on Thursday urged people to turn the 2024 Lok Sabha polls into a “vote for rejection” and bring a democratic and pro-people government to New Delhi.

The Trinamul Congress chairperson called for the change in Delhi after she explained in detail how the Narendra Modi-led BJP government’s faulty economic policies were hurting the interest of the poor people in the country.

Addressing a “record” gathering at the party’s Martyrs’ Day rally — the most important programme in Trinamul’s annual roster of events, the Bengal chief minister made it clear that her main goal was to ensure a defeat of the saffron government running the country since 2014.

Her attempt to industrialise Bengal and create jobs for the youths (see chart) in the state, often referred to as an Achilles Heel of the Trinamul government, also featured extensively in the address during which she referred to various upcoming projects in the state and their employment potential.

Vote for rejection

“What a fantastic government running the country? Don’t you know?” Mamata asked towards the end of her hour-long speech in which she elaborated on the state of the Indian economy, the impact of price rise on the lives of common people and the problem of unemployment.

“I urge you to make the 2024 election a vote for rejection.… And bring a democratic and pro-people government to Delhi,” she added.

Every year, Mamata uses the July 21 rally — which commemorates the 13 Youth Congress supporters killed in a police firing in 1993 — to send political messages and set targets for her party. Unlike the past years, her address this time — held in an off-line mode after a gap of two years — did not dwell much on politics as her focus was primarily on bread-and-butter issues of ordinary people.

The political messages, like dos and don’ts for party cadres and organisational goals, were delivered by Abhishek Banerjee, the all-India general secretary of Trinamul.

Following the tradition of the last few July 21 addresses, especially since 2014 after the Modi government came to power and the BJP became a force to be reckoned with in Bengal, anti-BJP diatribe had been the theme of Mamata’s address. But she didn’t name Modi or any other BJP leader in Thursday’s address. The chief minister didn’t spend time on stressing the need for a united national Opposition, a goal she had set for herself in the 2018 edition of the rally.

“We will win all seats in Bengal and in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Goa and Uttar Pradesh. In all these states, we will support our friends, but we will also fight.... I am telling you that the BJP can’t come to power and once they are defeated, everyone will come together,” said the chief minister.

Warning on defections

Mamata repeatedly mentioned how the people of Bengal ensured the BJP’s rout in the 2021 Assembly polls. She also made it clear that the BJP’s strategy of triggering defections to grab power — the Maharashtra model in which the Uddhav Thakrey government was brought down — would not work in Bengal.

Referring to the BJP’s return to power in Maharashtra after Uddhav Thackeray’s government fell to a coup, she said: “They think, now that they’ve broken Mumbai, they will break Chhattisgarh and then Bengal. I warn them. Don’t come here. There is a huge royal Bengal tiger here.”She also threatened she would take people from Bengal to Delhi to stage protests against the Centre’s decision of stalling flow of funds under 100-day job scheme and rural road and housing projects.

Economy in stress

The chief minister tried to don the hat of an economist as she listed a range of problems plaguing the Indian economy and held the Centre’s faulty economic policies responsible for the fiasco, which has dragged Indian rupee to its lowest vis-a-vis dollar in the history of independent India. “The Indian rupee is getting devalued everyday…. This had never happened in the past,” said Mamata, referring to the steady slide in rupee, which may expose the Indian economy to a crisis in the foreign exchange front at a time the trade deficit has ballooned and the foreign exchange reserve has dwindled to a level in which the country can pay for around 10 months of import bill. The chief minister then went on to list how the Centre’s policies were eating up people’s provident fund deposits, resulting in mounting losses for PSU banks and indiscriminate sale of public sector units like the Air India, Coal India and even the railways.“People are losing jobs in all sectors as the government is busy closing down units.… The country needs a government that creates jobs,” said Mamata, who was critical of the Centre’s Agnipath scheme. “After four years, so many people (recruited as part of the Agnipath scheme) will lose jobs…. They can’t do this to the army, which has no alternative,” she added.

Attack on GST rates

Retaining her focus on macroeconomic policies, the chief minister then trained her guns at the Centre for levying GST on a range of daily use items like cereals, pulses, flour, curd, lassi and even muri (puffed rice). The Centre recently imposed GST on these items with a logic that the states used to levy VAT on these items in the pre-GST regime and taxes were imposed to prevent tax leakage. “Even GST on muri (puffed rice)?” asked Mamata, before urging the people to rise against a regime that has compounded problems in their daily lives.

The Bengal story

The state is poised for an industrial resurgence, which will result in creation of jobs, said Mamata, before adding that she was aware of the challenges of balancing industry and agriculture. “We will not forcefully raze down the homes of people for industry,” said Mamata while referring to the possibility of job creation in the proposed coal mine project at Deocha-Pachami in Birbhum. Although the coal-mine project is facing a legal challenge in the court, the state government is bullish about the project and the impact it will have on the state’s economy. “While we are trying to create jobs, the BJP is only trying to stall the process,” said the chief minister, referring to various legal challenges to recruitment at schools and some government institutions. While Mamata admitted that there may have been some mistakes in the process of recruitment and vowed that the guilty would be punished, she said she would continue her efforts to create more jobs for the people of Bengal. The Trinamul chairperson also listed several other projects, like the port at Tajpur and the Dankuni-Amritsar industrial corridor that would give a big push to industrial activities in the state. Over the last year or so, she has been rolling out a long list of projects — some of them she mentioned during the rally, another first of sorts — that would change the face of Bengal.