Kolkata: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a scathing attack against the ruling-Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal accusing it of looting central funds, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday that she didn’t expect him to disrespect the chief minister’s chair and the people of West Bengal by labelling them thieves.
“I don’t expect this from the Prime Minister. I respect his chair. I expect that he too would respect my chair. Why should he say that every citizen of West Bengal is a thief and hence the funds have been stopped? The double-engine governments in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar are the biggest thieves. Your focus should be on them,” Banerjee said while speaking at a government program in East Burdwan district.
The chief minister accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre of stopping funds to at least five schemes.
On Friday, while addressing a BJP rally near Kolkata, Modi had urged the people of West Bengal to oust the TMC in the 2026 assembly polls, saying that there can’t be any development till the TMC government was in power in the state.
“Funds provided by the Centre in the last 11 years for Bengal’s development is three times more than what the UPA government gave in 10 years. But development faces a big challenge. The large chunk of the money sent directly to the state is looted. It is spent on TMC’s cadres, not on the people. This is why Bengal is lagging behind other states in terms of development of the poor,” Modi had said.
The chief minister also attacked the Election Commission of India (ECI), saying that with the state assembly elections approaching there were renewed attempts to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
“Many salutes to the ECI. Don’t become a lollipop of the BJP, else the citizens of this nation won’t forgive you,” she said.
The chief minister accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of putting up an economic blockade against West Bengal.
“Today when you are in power, you are putting up an economic blockade against the state. What would happen tomorrow when you won’t be in power? People would treat you in the same way as you are treating them today,” she said.
She also said that the BJP has formulated its own version of Hinduism and was trying to thrust it on the people.
BJP leaders in the state, however, hit back saying that the TMC government was nearing its end.
“The people of West Bengal have come to know the TMC. They have abandoned the TMC. It doesn’t matter what the TMC is saying at the fag-end of their tenure. The people are not interested anymore,” Samik Bhattacharya, state BJP president, told media persons.
“The Bengalis do not consider the TMC as their face. The TMC is not able to understand this. If the Prime Minister has insulted the Bengalis, the Bengalis will question the BJP. Instead the Bengalis are now asking how the (TMC) party is still in power in the state,” he added.
