Bengal to lead drive for BJP ouster from Delhi in 2019, says Mamata Banerjee
Kolkata: A day after attending RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rally in Patna for the ouster of the BJP from power at the Centre, chief minister Mamata Banerjee declared on Monday that West Bengal would pave the way for bringing a change at the Centre in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.
Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s slogan ‘Achche Din’ she claimed, “Three years and some months have already passed after a new government came into existence at the Centre. Election is held after five years. Now tell me where is Achche Din? Only they (BJP) will remain in power forever, none else. But this can not happen.”
Accusing the BJP government of destroying communal harmony and its failure to create employment, Ms Banerjee said, “The battle of 2019 will usher a change in India. The call has to be made from West Bengal. A change is needed across the country. A new India and a new generation will arise. My student and youth fraternity will bring that change.”
She was addressing the foundation day rally of the party’s student wing: Trinamul Chhatra Parishad on Mayo Road. The Trinamul Congress supremo also tore into the BJP-ruled Haryana government of failing to tackle the violence in the wake of godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s conviction.
She asked the BJP to focus on Panchkula and Uttar Pradesh before Bengal.
Meanwhile, the Trinamul supremo also lashed out at the BJP for objecting her decision to postpone Durga Puja idol immersion for a day on the account of Muharram this year. Accusing some Delhi-based TV channels of spreading rumour, Ms Banerjee reasoned, “What is the problem is giving a gap of day when idol immersion would be held for four days? Durga Puja is our national festival. We do not organise idol immersion on Ekadashi and Amavashya. Even the most ignorant would not do it.”
The chief minister also called upon her party’s student and youth wing members to devote themselves in building the organisation.
Giving examples of the formation and the functioning of students bodies in some reputed academic institutions in the city, she advised, “Work has to be taken forward by setting up student councils. Student body’s election will be held the way it used to be held. But I do not want outsiders’ hooliganism in educational institutions.”
Ms Banerjee underlined, “While the college students will be in politics in their respective institutions, the university students will do politics at their places. This model has been adopted from the structure existing in St Xavier’s College and Lady Brabourne College.”
