Mamata dares Centre to slap President's Rule, arrest her
Bengal could well see more bloodshed in the days to come with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday exhorting Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers to take the BJP head-on even as she dared the Centre to “arrest her” and impose President’s Rule in West Bengal. A day after the second MP from her party Srinjoy Bose was arrested in the Saradha scam, Banerjee launched a full-scale attack on the Centre, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah and asserted “we will retaliate, if we are hit”.
She also sought to lay the blame of the Burdwan blast at the Centre’s doorstep, saying the house had been rented by the accused after the Modi Government came to power. Alleging that Bose was arrested because she attended a Congress function celebrating the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, she said she would attend such “secular events” a thousand times and announced a mega rally on November 24 in Kolkata against the Centre’s “vindictive politics”.
Banerjee further questioned CBI’s continuance following the Supreme Court taking its Director off the 2G scam probe. She alleged Bose’s arrest was a conspiracy by the BJP to reduce its numbers in the RS to ensure passage of Bills
In the counter-offensive against “conspirators BJP and CBI” at a mass meeting attended by the party Ministers and MPs, Banerjee tended to embark on a two-pronged strategy to counter the chit fund debacle: First, by taking the BJP workers head-on “on the streets” — much in the way they had done to the Marxists.
And second, by provoking the Centre to “invoke Article 356 and arrest me if you can.” This is a clear bid “to extract martyrdom even by using the adverse circumstances,” Opposition left said. “They have arrested Tumpai (Bose) because they want to settle political scores with me,” she said. Bose had allegedly extracted Rs60 lakh a month from jailed chit fund boss Sudipto Sen for reasons he failed to explain.
In what was being viewed by the political circles as her “apprehension for the worse”, Banerjee said “Amake arrest koruk (let them arrest me). Ami dekhe nebo (I will face it all)”. Apparently inciting her men to terrorise the BJP workers, Banerjee said: “Once you have attacked us you expect retaliation. We will not sit quiet. This is my instruction to my partymen.”
Banerjee attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi without naming him. “Why have you made so many foreign trips in just six months of your coming to powerIJ From where is this money coming fromIJ” she asked.
Even BJP president Amit Shah did not escape Banerjee’s attack when she asked, “Why a Danga Guru (a mastermind of riots) has been made a party chiefIJ” Incidentally, the Trinamool Government had denied permission for a Shah rally scheduled to be held on November 30 at the Victoria House area in Kolkata. The BJP had moved the High Court on grounds that the same venue had been given to the ruling party a few months ago.
At one point of her speech, Banerjee even shifted her focus to October 2 Khagragarh blast in Burdwan by laying the blame at the door of the BJP saying, “BJP was in power at the Centre when the house at Khagragarh where the blast occurred was rented by the terrorists.”
Asking why the “CBI was not taking up so many chit fund scams in Delhi and other places”, Banerjee said the CBI was being used as a “political tool to reduce the Trinamool’s numbers in Rajya Sabha to get its controversial Bills passed.”
She said the CBI was crossing its brief by focusing on the people who defrauded Saradha chief instead of catching those who defrauded the people in general. State Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi, however, gave a different version of Bose’s arrest saying “the agency which has arrested him must have had some good reasons to do so. Therefore, it is premature to make any comment”.
Reacting to Banerjee’s speech, BJP central observer for Bengal Rajnath Singh said, “She claimed an unblemished image. Now the myth has busted. She also said that she would resign if she was found guilty. Now the time has come when she should start drafting her resignation letter.”
Bengal BJP leader Ritesh Tewari said, “Her speech clearly shows that she is now feeling afraid. There is no point shouting now.” On Banerjee’s charges that media had been bribed by the BJP, he wondered“whether the Trinamool had also done the same in 2009, 2010 and 2010.”
PCC leader Abdul Mannan said, “Now Mamata Banerjee has exploded because her efforts to placate the BJP has failed” while the CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty said, “She is talking about secularism now but it was Mamata Banerjee who brought BJP to Bengal.”