In a massive rally to observe as Martyrs' Day on Sunday, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav attacked the BJP-led NDA Government at Centre saying that it is not stable and can collapse any time.
Addressing the crowd, the SP chief said that the people of Uttar Pradesh fought with the BJP and left them behind. "The people of West Bengal have fought with the BJP and left them behind, the same happened in Uttar Pradesh. The people sitting in the government in Delhi are in power only for a few days. 'Woh sarkaar chalne wali nahi hai, woh sarkaar girne wali hai'..." Yadav said.
Both the SP and TMC are important constituents of the INDIA bloc led by the Congress. Banerjee also attacked the CPM and Congress. "I want to thank Akhilesh ji, you have accepted my invitation. I want the relationship of Bengal to be better with the entire country. I want to say the 'Khel' that you showed in UP, they (BJP) should have resigned from their post but they are shameless. They have tried every agency and every means possible but they have still lost. In North Bengal, our results have not been good but I hope in the coming days we will be winning there," Mamata said at the rally where she found the opportunity to attack the Congress as well as the Left.
"We fought against three parties. I salute the people of this state. The more we win, the softer we need to become," she said.
Yadav is a special invitee to the 'Martyrs' Day' rally of the TMC held in Esplanade area in the central part of the city this afternoon. "This government at the Centre won't last long and will fall soon. Such communal forces want to be in power at any cost, but those designs won't succeed," he said without naming the BJP or NDA. The SP Lok Sabha MP asserted that the "communal forces at the Centre" are "hatching conspiracies and trying to destabilise the country".
Speaking further, Mamata assured cooperation to all Bengal residents whose relatives are stuck in violence-hit Bangladesh. She also said that her government will provide shelter to those who come to them."If Bangladeshis come knocking on our door, we will provide them shelter," Mamata said, referring to UN Resolution on refugees. "We should not get provoked over matters concerning current situation in Bangladesh," she added.
BJP slammed Mamata Banerjee for offering shelter to anyone coming in distress from Bangladesh and called it an "evil plan" of the INDIA bloc to settle illegal immigrants from the neighbouring country to Jharkhand to win elections. BJP co-incharge for West Bengal Amit Malviya also questioned Banerjee's authority to offer shelter to anyone coming from other country, saying immigration and citizenship are exclusively in the Centre's domain, and that states have no locus-standi in such matters.
"Bengal is the soil of movements. Gandhiji was born in Gujarat but half of his life was spent in Bengal. During British rule, there were three places where an independent government was formed. One is Bengal's Tamralipta, the other two are Balia (UP) and Satara of Maharashtra. If Bengal was not there, Independence would not have been achieved… The BJP can't run movements. They can only file PIL petitions. They used to say we could eat 26,000 jobs and we could eat 45,000 jobs. They are trying to end OBC reservation. But we will fight. We have already filed an appeal to the Supreme Court," Mamata said.
