A day after two Kolkata Police officials were caught red-handed in a sting operation on BJP leader Rahul Sinha, party national president Amit Shah came down heavily on Mamata Banerjee for trying to vilify the saffron leadership in order to divert the public glare from Saradha and Narada scams that had tainted Banerjee’s own colleagues.
Shah hit out at the Bengal Chief Minister on Tuesday saying, “you are trying to frame our leaders by hatching such dirty conspiracy because your own party men have been caught in camera while taking bribe.”
Banerjee should have expelled the tainted leaders of her party “but she will not do that because she is afraid that after such action these leaders will reveal many things about her,” he said at the Kolkata Press Club.
Two Kolkata Police Special Branch personnel were on Monday caught red-handed trying to bribe Sinha and lure him into a corrupt deal to help cow-smuggling along India-Bangladesh border in Murshidabad. The two-some were immediately caught by the BJP men and handed over to the police.
Earlier, picking up from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi left on Sunday Shah told an election rally that Trinamool Congress was steeped in corruption and had given nothing to Bengal except bomb factories.
While the chit fund companies like Saradha were born during the left rule they flourished during Trinamool Congress regime, he said, adding, “now the whole world knows how Trinamool is steeped in corruption from Saradha to Narada” cases.
On industrial deceleration in Bengal, Shah “acknowledge” that “factories have indeed come up in Bengal during the Trinamool rule “but those are not industries but bomb factories” and “today the situation is such that the melody of Rabindra Sangeet has been drowned by bomb blasts.”
Incidentally Trinamool Congress’ Birbhum district president Anubrata Mandal had earlier told a rally that “when we come back there will be no Rabindra Sangeet like 2011 but drum beats (read attacks on opposition).”
Banerjee’s nephew and Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee told a rally, “after May 19 when the result comes out we will avenge every inch of what is being done now,” while the Chief Minister herself said, “the central forces are here for three days but we will be there permanently.”
Attacking the Chief Minister on Narada sting operation where a host of her colleagues were seen taking bribe, CPI(M) State secretary Surya Kanto Mishra said, “such incident is unprecedented in post-Independence Bengal. This incident has shamed the entire opposition but the Trinamool chief is not ashamed of this. Rather she is proud of those thieves and has even walked with them in election rallies.”
Elsewhere the Chief Minister hit back at Shah warning him against insulting her State because “we in Bengal do not take insults lying down.” She roared, “if we insult our Tagore and Nazrul then I promise that I will be your biggest enemy.”