Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday attacking the Prime Minister for allowing Gandhiji’s picture to be replaced by his in a KVIC calendar where Modi is shown spinning wheel in place of the Father of the Nation Banerjee told an audience at Barasat 35 km off Kolkata that “this man now considers himself even bigger than Gandhiji. Otherwise can you imagine the audacity of this man to get Mahatma’s photograph replaced by his own!”
“Today he is replacing one picture of Gandhiji. Tomorrow he will replace every other pictures of great men with his own,” Banerjee said. “Think the kind of dictatorship that we are in today,” she added.
In a desperate bid to join the demonetisation issue and the arrest of Trinamool MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Paul the Chief Minister said “the reason behind the arrest of our MPs is that we were alone fighting against the notebandi scam that has hit the common man the hardest. But Modi Babu must keep this in mind that come what may we will continue to fight against the move though they arrest all of us.”
Daring the Prime Minister to arrest her she said, “I challenge him to arrest me. let him arrest and throw us in jail. People will not tolerate this and they will break all the jails to get our release,” asking the audience to “rise up in protest and take on the BJP for its immoral act of suppressing the people’s voice.”
Threatening Modi with grave consequences when he will not be in power Banerjee said “today you are showing your might as you are in power but we will remember what you are doing today and pay you back bit by bit when you are voted out of it.”
Wondering why the CBI was not looking into the reported deal between lIC and chit fund company Rose Valley she said “If at all that deal was signed then should we demand the arrest of Prime Minister and the Finance Minister because the lIC functions under the Finance Ministry.”
Attacking the Prime Minister for his “lack of understanding of the popular problem” and literally parroting the language of Rahul Gandhi she said, “Modi Babu does not understand the people’s problem. In order to serve the interest of some 50 top industrial houses he has dumped the entire nation in deep water.”
“Today everyone from the small entrepreneur to shopkeeper, worker, farmer and those in the unorganised sector have been affected by the demonetisation,” she thundered wondering why the Prime Minister asked the women to dump their purse and take recourse to Paytm instead.
“You are telling the women: ‘Batua chhod do’ but the women will never leave their batua, rather they will leave you,” she said reminding the poor people cannot handle plastic money and credit or debit cards “they have to depend upon the loose cash which you have snatched away from them.”
She said there was an ulterior motive behind asking the people to go cashless and rely on “cashless payment through companies which have already been blacklisted by the countries like America. Tomorrow these companies will take the common man’s cash and flee away then what will you do Modi Babu!”
Meanwhile in a related development a deal between cricket franchisee Kolkata Knight Riders and Rose Valley is tended to come under the CBI scanner, sources said adding that Rose Valley chief Gautam Kundu had held a secret meeting with a “very influential politician” just before the dealing was clinched.