A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned that the Sandeshkhali storm would soon sweep across the State pulling down in its wake a “corrupt, oppressive and anti-women” Trinamool Congress Government, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hit back presaging a “brewing anti-BJP tornado which will obliterate” the saffron outfit.
Desperate to pull back the steadily eroding women”s vote base in the wake of Sandeshkhali uprising against land-grab and sexual assault the Chief Minister on Thursday led a massive rally on the eve of International Women”s Day. At the end of the march joined by some women from the reverine islands Banerjee claimed that the members of the fairer sex were safest in Bengal.
“Some people are spreading false information about Sandeshkhali … I don”t say that some stray incidents do not take place here and there but the BJP leaders are taking advantage of it and spreading canards … in a bid to defame Bengal,” the Chief Minister said.
Claiming that Bengal was the “safest State in the country,” Banerjee alleged how women were disrobed in States like Manipur and how they were tortured in places like Hathras and wondered why the “Centre sends 450 teams to Bengal to disturb us but they never send a single team to Manipur or Hathras where the women were tortured and paraded naked.”
Earlier the Prime Minister had on Wednesday told in an all-women”s rally at Barasat in North 24 Parganas of which Sandeshkhali is a block how the “TMC has committed a grave sin by torturing mothers and sisters … that will make heads hand in shame.”
At the end of march, themed “Mahilader Adhikar, Amader Angikar” (women”s rights, our commitment) Banerjee said how the BJP was running a “publicity Government” which had “no other business but to spread lies about itself and others.
Stopping short of naming the Prime Minister Banerjee said how “photographs appear on ration bags and even injection (corona vaccine) certificates … all in order to gain publicity at the expense of public money … but they gave no photographs on death certificates when people died of corona.”
Saying that “projects were being inaugurated with false claims” that they have been made by the BJP Government, Banerjee said, “yesterday many projects like the metro railways were inaugurated … but I as the Railway Minister had sanctioned them and even ensured funds for them.”
On the promises made by the Centre Banerjee said, “they are giving promises about Ujala Gas and such other schemes but after the elections prices of all these including gas, fertilizers and everything will go up.”
For the first time raising the EVM issue Banerjee asked the TMC polling agents to remain alert as “they are introducing some chips in the EVMs … you will have to be alert … they even try to purchase you but you must remain cautious about the electoral malpractices that they might commit.”