Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday came down heavily on BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and his “so-called Gujarat Model” ,saying “there is neither a brand Modi nor any credible Gujarat Model which are all the creation of the media.”
Banerjee who was giving an interview to a Bangla television channel said Gujarat model had failed in many States, adding her own Bengal Model was more effective in all respects.On the Modi wave she said “the media has made a larger than life figure of Modi” because vested interests want to bring him to power. She wondered “how Modi can be a Prime Ministerial candidate when aPrime Minister is elected by the winning party in the House.”
Taking a dig at the BJP leader for contesting from two places she said “Modi is afraid of losing from any one seat so he is contesting from two seats” and added “if after winning from both the seats he leaves any one of them this will amount to deceiving the electorate who votes for him.”Apparently under pressure by the rising popularity of the saffron outfit which was likely to make heavy dents in the Trinamool vote bank these elections Banerjee said “Gujarat has grown in the past one decade because of the funds it got after the earthquake. Even I cleared funds for making railway lines when I was the Railway Minister.”
On the “so-called all round development of Gujarat Banerjee who was hard-pressed to tell her electorate why Bengal was lagging behind even after three years of political Parivartan Banerjee said “what we have done in Bengal in 27 months Gujarat cannot do in 1000 years” adding her State had recorded double revenue collection than Gujarat.In revenue collection while Bengal had recorded 55.77 percent growth Gujarat had recorded 31.55 percent she said adding “Bengal model is better than Gujarat model for the primary reason that Bengal is the cultural capital of not only India but the whole world.”
In infant mortality rate Bengal was ahead of Gujarat which had 41 percent IMR whereas Bengal had 32 percent. “In case of maternity mortality rate while 145 mothers die in Bengal 148 die in Gujarat” shesaid adding how her Government had set up 80 fast track courts, 19 human right courts and appointed 1.30 lakh civic police apart from recruiting 40,000 police constables throughout the State.
“Though Gujarat is getting central funds we are doing better than Gujarat in social sector” she said adding there were some people who were “jealous of my Government’s performance which was why they were criticising us.”