It will be no entry for BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls : Mamata

PTI, May 31, 2022, 6:05 PM IST

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday called for defeating the saffron camp in the 2024 general election and said BJP’s politics of hate and violence will find ”no entry” across the country.

Dubbing the BJP-led government at the Centre as ”adulterated”, she accused it of mismanaging the country’s economy through decisions such as demonetization and using central agencies to silence the opposition.

”Let me make it very clear that there will be no entry for BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. It has to go. There are no chances of BJP returning to power,” she said criticizing the eight years of the Narendra Modi government.

The feisty TMC boss, who was criticizing the eight years of the Modi government, said the people of India will ensure that in 2024 BJP’s politics of hate and violence find no entry in the country.

”The soil of Purulia and the soil of Bengal gave me the strength to fight for people. I fear nobody, and when it comes to ensuring people’s welfare, I will fight with all my might! – @MamataOfficial. In 2024, @BJP4India’s politics of hate & violence will find no entry in India,” the AITC later tweeted.

Banerjee said the Modi government began its tenure with fake promises which have culminated in failed experiments after eight years.

”The BJP government has destroyed the lives of the common people … The citizens of the country are fed up with the anti-people government at the Centre”, she said.

Banerjee, who was addressing a meeting of TMC workers of Purulia district, also said ”The BJP-led government at the Centre is adulterated. It has destroyed the country’s economy through disastrous decisions like demonetization, which was a big scam”. Slamming the Modi government for ”using” central agencies to destroy the opposition, Banerjee said the CBI and ED should first arrest corrupt BJP ministers.

”They (Modi government) are using CBI and ED and other central agencies to silence the opposition. Are the central agencies to be used only against (RJD leader) Lalu Prasad Yadav, and Satyendra Jain (AAP leader)? What about BJP ministers? Why is no action being taken against them? They too should be put behind bars,” she said.

Her comments come a day after Jain, a Delhi minister, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case. Aam Aadmi Party has cried foul calling it a political move ahead of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election.

Jain was taken into custody by the ED under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after a few hours of questioning.

Keeping up her attack against the BJP, the feisty TMC supremo said, ”They are summoning people in the coal pilferage and cattle smuggling scam. But the coal ministry is with the union government. ”How come cattle are being smuggled through international borders?” she questioned in a veiled reference to central agencies summoning several TMC leaders, including party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in connection with several cases. Banerjee said TMC will organize protests on June 5 and 6 in various blocks of the state to protest against the Centre’s discrimination in the alleged non-payment of MNREGA funds is owed to the state.

”Either the Centre releases our funds, or it should go (step down). We will organize protests against such discriminatory policies,” she said.

Listing the various welfare schemes undertaken for backward Purulia district, where BJP has gained ground in the last few years, Banerjee hoped that its people are ”no longer” angry with the state government or the ruling party as it has come up with many welfare schemes and ensured they reach every doorstep.

Purulia, once considered a stronghold of the Left Front, was snatched by the TMC in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. But the saffron camp gained ground in the area and won the Lok Sabha seat in 2019.

In the 2021 assembly polls out of the nine assembly seats in the state, six were won by BJP and three by TMC.