West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused the BJP of “cherry picking” officers at the airport to deliberately delay her flight, adding that her flight was kept waiting on the runway for 30 minutes.
It had earlier claimed that Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and his wife, MLA Kalpana Soren, were “forced” to return to Ranchi on Sunday after they were refused permission to land their helicopter in Jhargram in West Bengal due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unscheduled ‘Jalmuri’ stop.
“We struggled a lot to get permission for this meeting. They chose officers carefully. They deliberately stopped me so that my programs would be delayed.”
Read also: Marches intensify in Bengal’s Tamil Nadu state as polling date approaches
The chief minister also claimed that she struggled to get permission to hold the meeting, saying that a “senior BJP leader” was given poll duties to create trouble for residents of the area, the news agency reported. that I I mentioned.
“They are not giving us permission to hold meetings. A person who believes he is a senior BJP leader has come. I know this person well. This person has been given duty during elections. They are disturbing people in this area. We will take democratic revenge,” she said.
She added that the “said leader” takes the approval of the BJP even before giving permissions.
“The person in charge here gets BJP’s approval even before giving permissions. People will give befitting reply to their arrogance democratically. I will urge people in the administration to work without bias,” he said.
Also read: EC action on repeat offenders ahead of Bengal elections; 106 people were detained “precautionarily”.
Mamata urges people to vote for AITC
As West Bengal gears up for the upcoming Assembly elections, the Chief Minister urged people to vote for AITC if they “want to save the state”.
“With me, Devdeep Purohit. He is contesting from Kardha. Don’t vote for any other party except AITC if you want to save Bengal. Make sure the electronic voting machines are fully checked and well protected. Be very careful on the counting day as well. Don’t let the polling happen in a machine that broke down one day,” she said.
She also criticized the BJP for deploying the army in the state, and accused the party of believing that “the people of Bengal are terrorists.” Banerjee questioned the army’s involvement, saying: “Why would they interfere in the elections? Has anyone ever heard that meetings with the army are held for the sake of elections?”
“They brought armored vehicles to Bengal for elections. They failed to stop the terrorists in Pahalgam. Are the people of Bengal terrorists? The army is to protect the country; why are they interfering in the elections? Has anyone ever heard that meetings with the army are held for elections? I will ask this question to the government of India,” he said.
Also read: Jobs tag, ‘bhoy’ and ‘external’ on BJP: What is Siliguri thinking as Bengal goes to polls | Ground report
She added: “Why are all the devices being used? Do you want to run the elections democratically, or do you want to bulldoze and kill people? Do you want bloodshed or peaceful elections? I want to see whether the power of all their devices is greater than the power of the people.”
She criticized Prime Minister Modi for his claims of “24 crore jobs”, saying that people had in fact lost their jobs.
“I want to ask the BJP some questions. Where are the 24 crore jobs? PM Modi promised that 2 crore jobs will be created every year. Did 24 people get jobs? In fact, people lost their jobs. The RBI report has proven that you have failed as a government. What about the promised promise?” $15 lakh? “Except for destroying the country, they have done nothing.”
Referring to Prime Minister Modi’s recent address to the nation, where he apologized to the nation for not taking up the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill in Parliament – the Prime Minister accused him of “misusing Doordarshan for political campaigning”.
“The Women’s Reservation Bill was passed on September 25, 2023. It got more than 450 votes. This was not notified because you did not want to give 33% reservation to women. You have misused Doordarshan in political campaigns. You are spreading lies that we did not allow you to pass the bill.”
The attack also included a jibe at the Prime Minister over delimitation, calling it a ploy to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha.
Also read: 106 ‘history journalists’ arrested in ECI crackdown in West Bengal
“In Lok Sabha, we have 37% women representation. In Rajya Sabha, it is 46%. In panchayats and panchayats, 50% is reserved for women. He wanted demarcation through the Women’s Reservation Bill. He wanted to increase the number of seats in Lok Sabha to 850 because he knew he could not win the current number of seats,” he said.
Assembly elections in West Bengal are scheduled to be held on April 23-29. The results will be announced on May 4.
(With inputs from ANI)
