Mamata hits campaign trail, lashes out at BJP
Kolkata, Sep 8: Lashing out at the BJP in her first election campaign for the bypolls to the Bhowanipur Assembly constituency where she is a candidate, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that the saffron brigade is using the central agencies to thwart the voices of the opposition.
She also told the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo that this might work well against other political parties, but it will not have any effect on Trinamool Congress.
Speaking at a party workers' meet in Chetla in south Kolkata, Banerjee said, "They have interrogated Abhishek Banerjee (Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Mamata Banerjee's nephew) for nine hours and again they are asking him to come. Is it possible to go to Delhi every day? Why did they shift the case from Kolkata?"
"Nothing has been found against him, but he will have to go and prove that he is a thief," Banerjee said, adding: "Now they have summoned Partha Chatterjee. Whenever an election is announced, the central agencies start to dance. I don't blame them because they are also under pressure and the pressure is from Narendra Modi and Amit Shah."
On Wednesday, state Commerce and Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee was asked to appear before the CBI in connection with the I-Core chit fund scam. He has been asked to appear before the CBI on September 13.
Banerjee echoed Abhishek Banerjee when she said, "They can silence the Congress with agencies' fear. They can silence Mulayum Singh jadav, Akhilesh Jadav and Sharad Pawar in the same way, but they cannot stop us. We will fight till the end."
It should be mentioned here that after being interrogated by the ED in connection with a money laundering case related to the coal scam in New Delhi for nine hours, Abhishek Banerjee had said, "I shall die but I shall not bow my head. They can stop the Congress but they can stop us. We will go to all the places where democracy is being killed."
Speaking on the Nandigram election where she was defeated by the Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, the Chief Minister said, "I was defeated in Nandigram, but I have filed a case and if there is nothing in the case, it would not have been admitted by the court."
Banerjee needs to win the bypoll from Bhowanipur to continue as the Chief Minister of Bengal.
"A lot of things happened in Nandigram. The VVPATs were not counted. Lots of machines were broken. I had to campaign with an injured leg. There were lots of conspiracies that were hatched against me. The case is sub-judice and so I shall not say much," she said.
"We only know how we fought against all the odds to win the Assembly polls. The BJP brought in goons from other states during the Assembly elections. I have to contest this bypoll as a conspiracy was hatched against me (in Nandigram)," she added.