Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday mounted a vitriolic attack on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee calling her the protector of scamsters who had sacrificed the interests of lakhs of people who voted her to power on the alters of chit funds.
Gandhi, who was on a whirlwind trip of West Bengal addressing rallies at Congress strongholds of Malda and Jangipur in Murshidabad district from where President Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijeet is also contesting said that instead of implementing developmental plans Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress Government had indulged in scams of various types in the past three years of its being in power.
“When you ousted the Marxists who had failed Government on all fronts and brought to power Mamata Banerjee, we expected that something good will happen in the State. But Mamatji’s Government followed in the footstep of the left Government. They gifted Bengal with scams, political violence and rape,” Gandhi said.
Raising the Saradha issue, Gandhi said that while the ponzy fund group cheated 20 lakh poor people the Government did nothing for those who were affected by the scam. “Your Government has done nothing to trace either lost `18,000 crore or the accused persons for the past two years,” he said adding thought the ED and the SEBI repeatedly told the Government to take action against the fraudsters the Trinamool Government which calls itself a Government of the poor did nothing.
Attacking the Government for presiding over the massive bungling in appointment of school teachers in the State Gandhi said 35 lakh aspirants were cheated in the massive bungling in the appointment of school teachers “but the Government has done nothing about that.”
On the rising incidents of rape and attacks on women the Congress leader said “Trinamool Congress has turned a State of Nobel laureates into a State where rape is the order of the day. Today Bengal has occupied the number one slot in incidents of rape notwithstanding the fact that its Chief Minister is a woman.” Taking the Chief Minister on for raising hue and cry over economic deprivation of Bengal by the Centre Gandhi said the State was unable to spend central funds. “This year itself a huge amount sent for Murshidabad has returned to Delhi because your Government failed to utilise it,” he said.
The Congress leader also guaranteed free health and house to the poor and pension to the old “if we come back to the power, just like we have created 14 crore jobs in the past 10 years.”
Taking on BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi the Congress leader said the saffron leader was towing the British principle of divide and rule.