KOLKATA: Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee predicted on Friday her return to power “soon” in West Bengal, three months after losing it to BJP in the Assembly Election. She also announced her statewide visit to reach out to the people and challenged the BJP to throw eggs, which has become a trend here after the change in power, on her.

The former chief minister further accused BJP of using the Election Commission to hijack the polls and the special intensive revision (SIR) to loot votes. She was addressing the foundation day rally of her party's student wing, Trinamul Chhatra Parishad, at Cathedral Road in the city, which attracted more crowd than that of a similar one by rebel TMC MLAs at Rani Rashmoni Road on the same occasion.

Ms Banerjee claimed, “TMC will return to power soon. Watch out what happens next. The history of this electoral theft will be rewritten. A major political change will come. When it will unfold, everyone will have to check where they stand. One day, BJP's own people will answer to their leadership without our efforts. I am not going anywhere until this government is defeated.”

She added, “People repeatedly advise me to take Sanyas. But I tell them: first show me through your conduct what renunciation means. Around 14,000 cases have been filed in these few months. I, along with Kalyan Banerjee (TMC MP), will move the Supreme Court against them. TMC will come back to power in a significant way.”

The TMC chief said, “My journey across the state will begin soon. If I am denied permission, I will tour walking. Let the police try to stop me. Let me see how many eggs and stones the BJP have. Just because of being in power at the Centre, they used the EC to hijack the Assembly polls and looted votes on the pretext of the SIR. The election was stolen, votes were removed and counting was manipulated under the EC.”

She then questioned the actions by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Police with a gas cutter to remove an unauthorised TMC billboard from her MP nephew Abhishek Banerjee's office at Camac Street on Thursday evening and the presence of the central forces in the state even after the polls.

The ex-CM pointed out, “If there is so much faith in the state police, why are the central forces deployed still here? If you trust the state police, why do you need the central forces? This shows lack of confidence in the state police. We ran governments without depending on central forces.” She later rejected allegations against her of stealing library books.


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