West Bengal CM flays PM Modi for ‘hijacking’ Bapu

Kolkata: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his attempt at usurping the place of Mahatma Gandhi.

“Modi is operating Gandhiji’s spinning wheel. Where is the country heading to?” an aghast Ms Banerjee asked. She called upon the people to rise and protest. “Can you believe it! Modi babu has replaced the Father of the Nation,” Ms Banerjee said, while inaugurating the annual Jatra Utsav at Barasat. She was referring to the latest calendar and diary of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) which have Mr Modi on their covers instead of the original khadi icon Gandhi. Ms Banerjee signed off by caustically observing that it did not behove Mr Modi to try his hand at Gandhi’s charkha.

Ms Banerjee was so outraged that she also voiced her displeasure over the issue by tweeting the following message: “The great symbol of charkha and Mahatma Gandhi now gets replaced by Modi babu. In the calendar and diary of Khadi (KVIC) 2017 Modi replaced Mahatma Gandhi ji. Gandhiji is the Father of the Nation. Modi ji what?”

Ms Banerjee started with her usual Modi-bashing for his “whimsical” decision to scrap Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes and for his “politically vindictive” decision to arrest her party MPs. “Modi babu! I dare you to arrest all my MPs and MLAs including myself. Go ahead and build new prisons. I want to see how much space your jails have,” she thundered, warning that the people will demolish the jails.

And then she tore into the prime minister for his trying to usurp the legacy of Gandhi. She said that soon Mr Modi’s pictures will also replace those of Gandhi on the currency notes. “ I do not understand why the people are silent over all this. They will have to gather courage and fight....I have fought whole of my life and I will continue to fight for the people till the end,” Ms Banerjee added.

Then she herself said that the people were not protesting loudly because they were terrified of being hounded by the CBI. “ If some one protests then the Conspiracy Bureau of Investigation will arrest him,” she claimed. Ms Banerjee again reiterated that a veteran MP like Sudip Bandopadhyay was innocent.

“He was arrested although they had no evidence against him only because he was in forefront of anti-demonetisation protest,” she said.

Ms Banerjee then complained that the CBI was not arresting BJP MP (Babul Supriyo) in the same Rose Valley scam case although he also hand links with the company.