At least 91 people, including seven women, were injured when a huge shamiana along with its iron scaffoldings collapsed on them while they were listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech here on Monday. Out of the 91 people, at least three received severe head injuries and were undergoing specialised treatment at the MMCH, sources said.
The Prime Minister rushed to the hospital and enquired about injured person’s health requesting doctors to take special care of patients and directing partymen to “do whatever required for their recovery.” He spoke to patients individually and heard them with patience. Trying to pep up an injured girl he told her, “yeh beti to bahut bahadur hai (this daughter is very brave).” A patient with head injuries said, “I could feel his soft hands. It was so tender and motherly. There was no sign of any show-off.”
“He was so concerned but at the same time so calm and casual just like a common man,” said an injured person, adding he was not a BJP member but had gone to listen Modi to the rally.
Sources said the tents suddenly collapsed “perhaps on account of overnight rain and excessive rush of people who had climbed up the iron scaffoldings that gave way and fell on the heads of people standing or sitting underneath it.”
During his speech, Modi launched a scathing attack on the TMC-led State Government. “Bengal is going to be liberated from Mamata Banerjee’s tyrannical rule in a few months time,” the Prime Minister said while addressing a farmers’ rally in Midnapore.
launching a blistering attack on the Trinamool Congress Government for running a virtual “Syndicate Raj” in Bengal where the “State Government can hardly be identified from the brutal army of syndicate wallahs”, the Prime Minister gave hope that “it is a matter of a few months when the curse of the Trinamool Government will go.”
He said, “The Trinamool Congress came to power with a pledge for the Maa, Maati and Maanush but in eight years time their real face is out and they have now turned into a band of extortionists who loot the people on every pretext.
“The tyranny of the left Front Government had taken 34 years to go but this Government is all set to go in a few months time: Just the people of Bengal are waiting for a chance to remove them.”
Reminding that his Government had taken the right measure in the farmers’ interest by announcing higher MSP for 14 crops, Modi said, “Unlike the Trinamool Congress which has only unleashed terror and misery on you, our Government is working towards doubling the farmers’ income by 2022.”
Bengal had become a hotbed of farmers’ suicide as the exploitative TMC Government had done nothing for them. “Even if the farmers have to sell their produce they have to go to the syndicates for a clearance. The price of the crop is then fixed by these syndicates,” Modi said.
Taking a dig at the way the Trinamool Congress put flags and large Mamata Banerjee cutouts on Modi’s route, the Prime Minister said, “Our good work for the farmers have so much impressed the Trinamool Government that it has put up their flags to welcome me. Not only this they have also posted Mamata Banerjee’s cutouts with folded hands as though she is welcoming and congratulating me for the good works done by my Government.”
Attacking Mamata Banerjee for running a Government of appeasement instead of providing service to the people who voted her to power, Modi wondered, “where the funds sent by the Centre go.” Doubting whether the Trinamool Congress’s syndicates gobbled up the Central funds too, he said “We are not clear whether the Central funds sent for the State’s development too go the syndicate way.”
Meanwhile, soon after the Prime Minister left for Delhi, State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the party was liable for the lapse and that “we are looking into the matter as to how it all happened.”