Bolpur (West Bengal): Flaunting a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chairperson Mamata Banerjee drew a mammoth crowd during her first road show this election season in Bolpur.
Amidst roars of “Joy Bangla” (Hail Bengal), the Bengal Chief Minister said the BJP’s dream of building “Sonar Bangla” (Golden Bengal) will fail miserably as Bengal has already been wrapped in gold by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
“The killer of Mahatma Gandhi is the leader of BJP. Those outsiders (BJP) don’t know Vivekananda and Tagore, but are utilising their names for vote bank politics. They don’t even know where Tagore was born, but are trying to get votes in his name. They are using Visva Bharati by appointing their party worker as Vice Chancellor to malign the sovereignty of Shantiniketan and Tagore,” claimed Mamata amidst singing of songs by Tagore.
Making a further jibe at the saffron camp, the TMC supremo alleged that they are trying to purchase people in return of money and also that by horse trading of few TMC MLAs, BJP cannot form the government in West Bengal.
Claiming that the BJP doesn’t even know the “basics of Hinduism”, Mamata accused the BJP of indulging in “hatred politics” not just in Bengal, but across the country.
“The BJP with its hatred and violent politics is trying to malign Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen and Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee. Instead of addressing the problems of the protesting farmers, they are trying to create untoward incidents in Bengal,” said the Bengal CM.
Incidentally, Basudeb Das Baul (a folksinger), who played the host and served lunch to Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his rally on December 20, also shared the dais with Mamata and sang folk songs.
TMC’s Birbhum unit president Anubrata Mandal said the party road show was more of a show of Bengali culture as folk artistes to Dhakis, from Kirtaniyas to tribal dancers had participated in it.
“More than three lakh people from across Birbhum participated in the rally. The outsiders don’t know the actual culture of Bengal, but TMC does. Our party pledges to maintain the rich culture of the state,” mentioned Mandal.
On the other hand, BJP leader Anupam Hazra claimed that Mandal had forcibly brought people to road show to project the “fake might” of TMC.
According to political observers this appears to be a befitting reply to Shah’s rally at the same venue.
“TMC supremo could once again turn on her charm signalling a positive side for the TMC. The acid test of the TMC for both testing their popularity in Birbhum and to give a boost to party workers seemed successful in CM’s road show,” mentioned the analysts.
It can be recalled that in the 2016 Assembly polls, the TMC retained its majority by winning 211 seats, while in 2011 it had won 184.
BJP’s vote share in 2016 was 10.2per cent and in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it went up to 40.3 per cent mainly because of Hindus (including Matuas and other refugees) gravitating towards the saffron camp.
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