A day after blowing the election bugle in Goa, Bengal Chief Ministeron Tuesday launched a frontal attack against Prime Minister NarendraModi and the BJP for playing the religion card before elections before vanishing for the next five years.
In an apparent reference to the Prime Minister’s inauguration of the refurbished Kashi Vishwanath temple and Corridor Banerjee told a rally in Goa that she was not among people who do nothing for the entire term only to surface with conch shells during the elections.
“We saw Modi ji worshipping the Ganga and taking a holi dip there … one has every right to do so … but it is strange to notice that he does so only during the elections … like he would go to meditate in the mountains of Uttarakhand ahead of the polls … he even acts a priest sometimes … but I want to ask what do you do the entire year … where do you disappear after the elections,” Banerjee said attacking the Uttar Pradesh Government for hiding facts on pandemic and disposing of corpses in the holi river.
“Here we are seeing Modi ji worshipping the Ganga and taking holi dips in Varanasi and there the BJP Government in UP polluted the Ganga for a full year during the corona times by disposing off dead bodies in the holi river,” the Bengal Chief Minister said.
Attacking the BJP for raising her Bengali origins Banerjee said “They are saying that I have come to Goa despite being a Bengali … but my question is if people from Gujarat can come to Goa why can those from Bengal not come here … Did we ask whether Mahatma Gandhi was a Bengali or a Goan or anything … this is because he was a national leader and a national leader has to take everyone together.”
Iterating once again that she had not come to Goa to become the Chief Minister she said “Goa will be run by the Goans and not be Gujarat or Delhi,” reminding how the BJP had not come to power in the coastal State by people’smandate.
“The BJP did not come to power in Goa with people’s mandate but it purchased power here in Goa,” she said.
Earlier Banerjee said that the BJP was out there to divide the country promising to stop the saffron party from doing so. “The BJP is trying to divide the country but we promise to stop them from doing so…because Hindustan stands for a united India.”
Taking a dig at the Congress for failing to resist the BJP from usurping power she said “as the Congress failed to stop the BJP we thought that it was the TMC which should come forward and make a new system of alliance to stop them … I have not conflict with the Congress … we are here because they failed to confront the BJP … we are here to offer an alternative.”