Churabhandar/Kolkata: Escalating his face off with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday accused her of trying to protect those involved in chit fund scams and warned neither the perpetrators nor those shielding them will be spared.
The Trinamul boss quickly returned the fire, calling Modi “master of corruption” and a “shame” for the country.
Addressing his third rally in the state in a week, Modi said Banerjee’s ruling Trinamul had inherited the legacy of “bloodshed, violence and atrocity” from the previous Communist government, and “defamed” the soil of West Bengal.
Attacking Banerjee, who is at the forefront of efforts to stitch together a broad-based anti-BJP coalition of opposition parties ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Modi said the proposed ‘Mahagathbandhan’ (grand alliance) was ‘Maha Milawat’ (a grand adulderation) of people who had no ideology or vision for the country.
“Never in the history of our country have we seen a chief minister sitting on a dharna to save the corrupt. The poor want to know why did you sit on dharna to save those who are accused of negligence in probing the chit fund scam. “This chowkidar (watchman) will not spare them. Whether it is the perpetrators or their protectors, nobody will be allowed to go scot free,” Modi declared while addressing a BJP rally in Jalpaiguri district.
Banerjee reacted quickly and sharply to Modi's fulminations, referring to him as “Mr Maddy”.
“The less we talk about this man the better. Mr Maddy is the master of corruption. He is master of arrogance and a shame for the country. I have no words to describe him. His standard is so low that we never expected such a man to be the prime minister. We have respect for the chair but not for this man,” she told journalists in Kolkata. “He (Modi) is the most corrupt man in the Rafale deal. He is the master of notebandi. He was never a ‘chaiwala’ and doesn't know how to prepare tea. From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He speaks a bunch of lies,” the West Bengal chief minister said.
