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Not an inch to BJP without a fight, says CM Mamata days ahead of polls
Banerjee upped her ante against the BJP while sharpening the ‘outsider’ charge and alleged that the BJP is a party which issues fatwas on everything from clothes to the food people eat.
With barely five days to go before the crucial assembly polls take off in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said on Monday that she will not leave an inch to the Bharatiya Janata Party without a fight.
“Till I retain my last breath I won’t leave an inch to the BJP without a battle. Not even to the CPIM and the Congress,” Banerjee said while sitting in a wheelchair with her leg in a cast.
The TMC supremo was injured while campaigning at Nandigram in East Midnapore district on March 10 and has since then been campaigning from a wheelchair.
“Do you know why am I campaigning even with just one leg? Because if I stay home, they will capture Bengal. But if I am out in the field, a shot even from one leg is enough to send the BJP out of the field,” she said while reiterating the slogan Khela Hobe (a game would be played), which has gone viral now.
The BJP has already countered the slogan with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying “Khela Shesh, Vikas Shuru” (Game over, development begins).
Banerjee also slammed the BJP for making a promise of 33% reservation for women in government jobs saying that the TMC government has already given 50% reservation to women in panchayat and municipal bodies.
She urged Left supporters not to vote for the Left or the BJP and instead vote for the TMC as “as it is a fight for existence and a fight to save Bengal.”
The BJP hit back saying that Banerjee is sure of her party’s defeat and knows that she can’t fight the BJP politically and is hence making such statements.
“These statements have no meaning. Banerjee knows very well that she is going to lose the polls and is hence trying to divert attention. But people of Bengal have made up their minds and the results we will see on May 2,” said Samik Bhattacharya, BJP spokesperson.
Banerjee upped her ante against the BJP while sharpening the ‘outsider’ charge and alleged that the BJP is a party which issues fatwas on everything from clothes to the food people eat.
“In BJP-ruled states women are not allowed to go out and study. They issue fatwas and dictate everything from what you wear and what you eat. They decide what clothes will you wear – saree or salwar kurta. They will tell pregnant women not to eat eggs. But we won’t listen to all these,” said Banerjee.
In 2019, a BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh had said that inclusion of eggs in mid-day meals may turn children into cannibals, and more recently newly-appointed Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat, found himself at the centre of a controversy following his ‘ripped-jeans’ remark.
Banerjee also took a jibe at the BJP’s slogan of Ashol Poriborton (real transformation) raised by Modi saying that it was copied from the TMC’s slogan of Poriborton in 2011, when the party came to power uprooting 34-years of Left Front regime.
The Congress, meanwhile, released its manifesto named Banglar Disha in Kolkata on Monday. The BJP and the TMC had already launched their manifesto earlier.
