Hours after Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh saw in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee a deserving Prime Ministerial candidate,
the senior saffron leader retracted saying he had only expressed his good wishes for her Prime Ministerial ambitions though in “she has no possibility of being a Prime Minister.”
On Saturday Ghosh while wishing Mamata on her birthday said she needed to remain fit as “Bengal’s fate depends upon her success.” Deliberating further on whether he saw in her a person fit to become the country’s Prime Minister, Ghosh said everyone wanted her to stay fit and work well as “if there is any Bengali who can be a PM it is she.”
Earlier on a similar circumstance “Jyoti Basu was deprived the opportunity to become the country’s first Bengali PM though finally Pranab Mukherjee was made the first Bengali President. Jyoti Babu was failed by his own party. But as a Bengali I have no problem in her (Banerjee) being a Prime Minister.”
Even as the Trinamool Congress leadership, including his strongest critics, like Anubrata Mandal and Kalyan Banerjee publicly welcomed Ghosh’s “capitulation” and said “the statement only projected Ghosh’s “healthy political mindset by dint of which he acknowledged the truth” of Trinamool’s prowess, the BJP leader said he was only answering to some specific questions by the media.
“I was asked to comment on Banerjee’s chances of being the first Bengali PM and I replied that if any Bengali had chances to be a Prime Minister then she is the one. This should be taken in a good humor instead of reaping political harvest out of it,” the State BJP president said adding “I said she is the fittest Bengali candidate as of now. But in reality there is no remote chance of her being the PM.”
Reacting to Ghosh’s statement senior Trinamool MP Kalyan Banerjee said “why only Dilip Ghosh every one believes that Mamata Banerjee by dint of her sheer hard work has become the most able candidate to become the Prime Minister. Not only as a Bengali but also as among t he entire Indian leadership she is the most deserving candidate.”
Meanwhile the State BJP leadership said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was likely to address the grand rally at Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on January 29. Before him party president Amit Shah was likely to address two rallies: one on January 16 at Siliguri and the other in Kolkata.
“We have got January 29 as a tentative date from the Prime Minister’s office,” a senior BJP leader said in Kolkata.