Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, April 8

The BJP is getting jawans killed and then claims that their respect for the armed forces has no parallel, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in an election meeting on Monday.

Mamata had questioned the timing of the Pulwama attack (shortly before the General Election) and why a large convoy of CRPF personnel was allowed to move on the highway despite the government having intelligence inputs about a possible terror strike.

Taking a dig at BJP’s high decibel “patriotism”, she said she did not need to learn patriotism from people who had a role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and who never respected Netaji.

Mamata was speaking at Cooch Behar’s Ras Mela ground where PM Narendra Modi had addressed a rally yesterday. Referring to Modi as “ex-Prime Minister”, she said during his five-year tenure as the PM he did nothing other than dressing fashionably and touring various foreign countries.

Mamata said she would not have stooped so low as to launch personal attack against Modi had he also not paid scant regard to propriety while going after her in his speeches.

Extolling the virtues of religious harmony, Mamata said like a family consisted of various members, religions too co-existed in a “family of religions”. She added that she did not expect Modi to understand anything about family of any kind. “How can he (Modi) understand family? Has he ever seen one? One doesn’t need to go far. Has he seen his wife?” Mamata said.

Ridiculing Modi for promising people good administration, Mamata said Modi and Amit Shah were like “Duryadhana and Dushashan” — the two villainous brothers of Mahabharata.

She said if Modi became PM for a second time, money kept in banks by ordinary people would not be safe.

Same tricks don’t work twice: Maya

• Saying the same tricks won’t work twice, BSP chief Mayawati charged the BJP of failing to fulfil any of its poll promises
• The BJP should have released an action taken report on its previous election manifesto, she said. “But it does not have the courage to do so as the country is facing its worst days instead of the promised ‘achche din’,” she said