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PM, Mamata trade barbs over polling day violence in Bengal
At a rally in Kalyani town, Modi accused Banerjee of instigating local people against paramilitary forces on election duty in the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee blamed each other on Monday for the deaths of four people during polling after central forces opened fire, allegedly in self-defence, in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district last week.
At a rally in Kalyani town, Modi accused Banerjee of instigating local people against paramilitary forces on election duty in the state.
“It is being openly said that TMC [Trinamool Congress] workers will gherao central forces and didi’s remaining supporters would cast false votes…In the last 10 years, Mamata Banerjee has conspired to deny the scheduled castes, the poor and the deprived sections their rights through ‘chappa vote’ (rigging). What happened in Cooch Behar was the consequence of this conspiracy,” the PM said.
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Hours later, Banerjee hit back and alleged the “plan” was hatched by Union home minister Amit Shah and Modi knew about it. “I have all the names of those who opened fire. I have all details. I still believe that Amit Shah planned the entire thing, and the PM knew about it.”
“The Narendra Modi government has shot dead four persons. Modi gave them a clean chit. India has not seen such a Prime Minister,” Banerjee said at a rally in North 24 Parganas.
Union home minister Amit Shah dismissed the allegations and alleged that Banerjee instigated local people to snatch the guns of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.
Read more: 'She sees it all, knows about it': Mamata doesn’t condemn violence, says PM Modi
Addressing a public meeting in Dhupguri, Shah said, “The fourth phase polls were held in North Bengal. Didi instigated people and told them to gherao CRPF and loot them. People listened to her, weapons were snatched, bullets were fired and four people died. Didi had you not instigated them, they would not have died.”
The exchange came amid heightened tensions in the state after the death of four villagers during voting on Saturday in Coochbehar. The central forces and ECI said the forces fired in self-defence after being surrounded by an armed crowd, but TMC and the villagers accuse the security personnel of opening fire without provocation.
Referring to the recent incident of lynching of a Bihar police officer in West Bengal and the death of his mother from shock, Modi said Banerjee’s government did not respect anyone anymore, “not even mothers”.
“Didi, is that officer’s mother not a mother for you? No mother in Bengal knew how cruel and ruthless you are,” Modi said.
Read more: EC bans Mamata Banerjee from campaigning for 24 hours, she says will protest
Banerjee denied the charges and hit back at the BJP. At a rally in Dum Dum, she said if elected back to power, she will introduce a bill in the state assembly to ban politicians who make inflammatory remarks on firing and shooting.
“The BJP has no shame. After killing four people, they are saying that four more rounds should have been fired. Is this how a political party speaks? We, in politics, should have a control over a tongue. What kind of a country are we living in. I am ashamed to call these people as part of Bengal. They should be arrested and banned from politics.”
She was referring to comments by BJP leaders Dilip Ghosh and Rahul Sinha, who backed the central forces. Ghosh said on Sunday that such incidents might happen again in the next phase if people try to take the law into their own hands and Sinha said on Monday that the forces opened fire to stop rigging and did well to not shoot “seven or eight” people.
