West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led cental government, saying that she felt ashamed over the alleged phone tapping of Opposition leaders, and asked what people in other parts of the world must be thinking about India after this episode.
“The phones of five or six MPs have been tapped. I feel ashamed. I hesitate to talk on this issue. What people in other parts of the world must be thinking about India! I cannot humiliate my motherland. I will watch. Let us tolerate as much as we can,” Banerjee said at a press conference in Nabanna, the state secretariat.
The leaders who have alleged phone tapping include Trinamool Congress member of Parliament Mahua Moitra, besides Congress president Mallikarjun Mansur and his party colleagues Shashi Tharoor and K C Venugopal, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi.
Banerjee, however, maintained silence on Moitra, who is currently facing a parliamentary committee probe into a bribe-for- question allegation raised by Delhi-based lawyer Jai Anant Dehadrai and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey.
The opposition leaders claimed to have received alerts from Apple saying efforts to hack their devices had been detected by the company.
{{/usCountry}}The opposition leaders claimed to have received alerts from Apple saying efforts to hack their devices had been detected by the company.
{{/usCountry}}Refuting the allegation, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnav said on Tuesday that Apple has been asked to share “real, accurate information on the alleged state-sponsored attacks.”
Banerjee on Wednesday also said that the federal agency probes against opposition leaders across the country and her ministers in the state are part of “political vendetta.”
“They will arrest everybody before the Lok Sabha elections. But tomorrow, when you (BJP) will no longer be in power, the cat will be out of the bag. They think they can rule Bengal if they arrest all ministers. That will never happen. TMC will remain in power,” she said.
Without naming BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, who was in charge of important departments during his tenure as cabinet minister in the TMC government, Banerjee said: “I will ask my officers to prepare a report on the prices at which land was sold by the Haldia Development Authority and Digha Development Authority. I will ask my officers to find out how some BJP leaders splurge these days.”
“Are those who demand the arrest of all ministers in Bengal supposed to be sages? Their corruption has touched the sky,” the chief minister said, indirectly referring to the recent arrest of former food minister Jyotipriya Mallick by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the alleged public distribution system scam.
Adhikari threw a counter challenge at Banerjee soon after she raised the allegation.
“It is public knowledge that all decisions related to sale of land at Haldia and Digha were taken at cabinet meetings presided by her. I challenge her. Let her prove whatever she is claiming. She aspires to be the next prime minister. It will never happen,” Adhikari told the media.
Banerjee also announced that a massive agitation will begin unless the Centre lifts the suspension of funds for welfare schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MNREGA) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
“Panchayat and zilla parishad members will be summoned to a meeting at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on November 16. We will decide the next course of action on that day,” she said.