Like flyover, Mamata Banerjee will crash Bengal: Narendra Modi

Accusing West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of doing politics over dead bodies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday that the Girish Park flyover crash in Kolkata last week was “God’s warning” to the people of Bengal that they should save their state from the Trinamul Congress. Mr Modi also attacked Ms Banerjee for forging an “adjustment” with corruption and said the TMC now stood for “Terror, Maut (death) and Corruption”.

At the same time, Mr Modi attacked the “duplicity” of the CPI(M) and the Congress for entering an electoral tieup in West Bengal and fighting bitterly in Kerala.

“Yes, just days before the elections, the flyover collapse is God’s message to the people: today the bridge has crashed, tomorrow Bengal will collapse in a similar way. Without getting rid of both the Trinamul Congress and the Left, Bengal cannot regain its lost glory,” Mr Modi said while addressing an election rally at Madarihat in North Bengal. Dispelling the perception of a Modi-Mamata tacit understanding, the PM tore into the chief minister. From Saradha to Narada, from starvation deaths in sick tea gardens to infiltration from Bangladesh, from blasts in bomb factories to the flyover collapse, Mr Modi targeted Ms Banerjee belligerently on virtually every key issue. He urged people to not vote for her party as she had failed to bring the “pariborton” she had promised. “In fact, if voted back to power, she will destroy Bengal,” he added.

Mr Modi claimed the collapse of the Vivekananda Road flyover on March 31 was a horrific fallout of corruption. He said it was height of the CM’s “shamelessness” that the first thing she did after reaching the site of the tragedy was to declare the original contract for the flyover was handed out by the Left Front government. “After such a major tragedy, the first thing a chief minister should have done was to save people and help in rescue work. But the first thing she did was to blame the Left Front, saying the contract was given by them... Forget Left or Right, think about those who were dying, Didi,” Mr Modi said, adding that the CM had started an immediate blame game.

He asked Ms Banerjee that if the bridge was completed, then at the time of inauguration would she have told the people that the Left Front had built it. Mr Modi said when the flyover collapsed, they said it was an act of God. “No, it was an act of fraud,” he said.

The PM, while addressing an election rally in Burdwan’s Asansol area, said: “The time has come to teach Didi (Ms Banerjee) a lesson. There was a time when Didi used to fight against corruption by throwing chairs and receiving batons. What happened to you now Why have you changed so much The Narada sting operation has exposed how her party leaders took bundles of cash and asked for more. Have you taken any step against those leaders This means she has forged an adjustment with corruption and she thinks this is the right way forward.”

The Prime Minister accused the TMC of indulging in “scientific corruption”. He said: “I had heard about scientific rigging when the Left was in power. Now under TMC there is scientific corruption. Under the Mamata Banerjee government, it is being decided who will get the contracts before the department floats the tender.” Calling for the TMC’s ouster from West Bengal, the PM said: “In five years, bomb-making factories have come up in Bengal. Whom they are trying to kill with those bombs A reign of terror has been unleashed. Now the TMC does not stand for Maa, Maati, Manush. Now the TMC stands for Terror, Maut and Corruption.”