Kolkata: A day after West Bengal transport minister Madan Mitra’s arrest, a worried Chief Minister and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee hit the streets with thousands of supporters, and stepped up her attack on Prime Minster Narendra Modi for what she again termed as the BJP’s criminal conspiracy.
Addressing a rally of Trinamool worker, Ms Banerjee showed an image of jailed Sahara chief Subrata Roy with Mr Modi on her cellphone and said, “If image is a proof of criminal conspiracy, then the Prime Minister should be arrested for Sahara scam. A red diary was found during the raid at the Sahara office. It had several big names. Empty vessels make a lot of noise.” She was referring to photos of Madan Mitra sharing the dais with Saradha Group chairman Sudipata Sen.
Accusing BJP of using the CBI as a weapon for political vendetta, she said, “I must tell those who are in power — stay within your limits or you will face the music ... Governments come and go, democracy remains forever. Those in power in Delhi must remember that.”
“I am now in a position (as CM). If I had not been in this position, I would have pulled out the tongue,” the Trinamool supremo said without elaborating.
“The CBI has lost all credibility. It has become His Master’s Voice,” she added.
Throughout the day, the Trinamool organised protest rallies in the city and districts. They blocked roads and railway tracks causing enormous inconvenience to people and burnt effigies of Mr Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
The Trinamool, which has been rapidly losing its urban votebank and the support of intellectuals in the state, is a worried outfit. Some of the top leaders revealed “all of us, including Didi, have no option but to back Madan Mitra at this juncture”.
They argued that if “Madan felt that he was being isolated by the party, he could do a Kunal Ghosh and drag the names of other top leaders”. Therefore, they felt that the party has “no alternative but to back him to the hilt”.
A desperate Ms Banerjee, while targeting the BJP for Mr Mitra’s arrest on Friday, tried to join forces even with her archrivals — the Left. “We will support whosoever will rise against the BJP,” she said. Asked whether she also meant the Left, Ms Banerjee replied, “I don’t know anything about right and left, we will support anyone against the BJP.”
However, spurning her offer, the CPM went on to ridicule her, saying that it seemed that the Chief Minister has “panicked”.
