E-Paper
Lok Sabha elections 2019-‘Even those fighting 20 seats want to be PM’: Modi on Opposition
On Tuesday, Modi had criticised West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the chief of the Trinamool Congress, saying that he felt “pity” for her as the PM’s post cannot be bought with the money “looted in Saradha and Narada scams.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hit out at the Opposition, saying that the leaders of parties that were contesting only a handful of seats had dreams of becoming the prime minister.
“Even those who are contesting 20 seats want to be prime minister… Sab ghungroo bandhke taiyar ho gaye (everybody is decked up to take the hot seat),” Modi said at a rally in West Bengal’s Kamarpara, a day after violent clashes roiled the state and left one person dead during the third and largest phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
On Tuesday, Modi had criticised West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the chief of the Trinamool Congress, saying that he felt “pity” for her as the PM’s post cannot be bought with the money “looted in Saradha and Narada scams”, referring to the alleged financial irregularities in two chit fund companies that bankrupted thousands of small investors across eastern India. “If the post of the prime minister could be bought in auctions, then Congress and Didi would have bought it with the money they’ve looted from the country,” he had said.
The TMC is fighting all 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Banerjee is known as Didi (elder sister) to her followers.
“Speed breaker Didi is also sticker Didi. She just puts a sticker on central schemes like free electricity or ration for the people to claim that these benefits are from the state government,” Modi said at a rally in Ranaghat on Wednesday.
Modi had first called Banerjee “speed breaker didi” in Siliguri earlier this month, to describe what he called her attitude to development.
Banerjee, who was campaigning in Hooghly and Nadia districts on Wednesday, said that the more rallies Modi holds in Bengal, the more votes her party will get. “You (Modi) are destined to be dethroned after the elections. Our government will prove what a big scam demonetisation was,” she said, referring to the Centre’s decision to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes in November 2016 purportedly to crackdown on black money. Polling in the state is staggered across all seven phases of the general elections.
