Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday sought to find a link between the arrest of senior State Minister Partha Chatterjee on graft charges and the Centre’s attempt to topple her Government and accused New Delhi of using the agencies to destroy the reputation of Opposition parties for its narrow political agenda.
“There can be lapses while running big institutions … for which corrective measures can be taken but it is another matter when agencies are used to destroy the image and reputation of the opposition parties in order to pull down their governments,” the Chief Minister said alleging there were “plans to do a topple the Bengal Government much the way they did in Maharashtra.”
Wondering “why Enforcement Directorate conducted raids at various places at midnight or early in the morning and why those raids were planned just one day after the massive rally organised by the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata,” Mamata said, “they are trying to do a Maharashtra in Bengal but we are different … if they come here they will have to face the Royal Bengal Tiger, crocodiles and elephants.”
In an apparent bid to tone up the sagging morale of her party men in the wake of the arrest of Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee from whose apartment the ED recovered Rs 22 crore in cash Banerjee said “I ask all of you not to be afraid of the agencies let them come … but be sure BJP is not going to continue after 2024 … they will lose … they will lose … they will lose … how I cannot say … on what arithmetic I cannot say … but they will go after 2024 … so don’t be afraid.”
Attacking the media for acting as “agents” of some political outfits Mamata said “even the Chief Justice of India has said the media is organising kangaroo courts … I don’t say to spare the guilty … but I warn against persecuting the innocent.”
Saying that the Bengal Government had achieved bigger success than the Government of India Banerjee said while “in nationally unemployment has increased 20 percent in Bengal it has gone down by 45 percent … during the pandemic period India witnessed a negative growth of 7.7 percent where as Bengal was the only State to witness a growth of 1.2 percent… this is all because we have investment worth Rs 15 lakh crore and we have increased revenue by four times.”
Mamata’s statement came amid reports that she was flying out to Delhi in the first week of August. The report was immediately interpreted by CPIM) State secretary Md Salim as “yet another effort by Mamata to fix the Centre.”