West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday addressed three election rallies in Purulia but she did not hit back against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had launched a scathing attack against her and her party a day ago. Her past record shows that whenever any Opposition leader attacks her, Ms Banerjee always retaliates with equal belligerence.
On Monday, all she did was defend herself against Mr Modi’s jab that the chief minister was taking credit for the Centre’s subsidised rice scheme.
“Who has given rice at Rs 2 per kg The Trinamul Congress government, who else ” she said. Mr Modi had said on Sunday that the Centre was bearing a subsidy of Rs 27 per kg of rice. “But Didi tells people that she is giving them rice at a subsidised price,” he had said.
Ms Banerjee took pains to explain that the Centre’s subsidised rice stock was meant for only six crore people while her government was giving it to eight crore people.
She said that the Centre hardly did anything for the state.
But this was a half-hearted reply and the characteristic Mamata vitriol was clearly missing.
“Neither has the 34-year-old Left regime done anything for the development of Bengal nor did the two-year-old BJP government at the Centre do anything,” Ms Banerjee said.
“We have changed the picture of Bengal and have placed Bengal on the global map,” she said.
She asserted that it was her government which brought peace and development in not only Purulia but also the entire Jangalmahal.
“During the rule of the erstwhile Left Front government, people were in panic in the entire Jangalmahal area which witnessed daily killings and bloodshed. Those days are gone and peace has returned. There has not been a single killing in Jangalmahal since 2011,” the CM said.
Lashing out at the “unholy” nexus between the Congress and the Left Front, she alleged, “They are shameless. The Congress has forgotten how 55,000 Congress workers were killed in Bengal during the Left Front rule.”
