Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and NCP chief Sharad Pawar spoke on Monday and discussed what they called the Central government’s attempts to misuse its powers to destabilise Opposition-ruled states, a senior Maharashtra leader said.
Nawab Mallik, a spokesperson of Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), said that Mamata Banerjee spoke about the Centre targeting her government ahead of polls in West Bengal, especially with reference to three senior police officers being ordered to report to Delhi after an attack on BJP president J.P. Nadda’s car near Kolkata recently.
“Sharad Pawar and Mamata Banerjee discussed how the BJP is trying to destabilise Bengal, withdrawing government officials at will and infringing into the state’s rights. The way the BJP is misusing central agencies is not right,” Mallik told reporters. “Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar will hold meetings with other national leaders too. Mr Pawar will go to Bengal if needed,” he said.
The West Bengal CM further attacked the Centre on Monday when she accused the BJP of doing everything in its power to try and weaken her government and her Trinamool Congress party. “BJP is a ‘cheatingbaaz’ party, for politics they can do anything. BJP politics is that for politics they can say anything, all the garbage of lies,” the Chief Minister said in a press conference on Monday, two days after some 35 rebels from her party joined the BJP at a rally of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Mamata has so far refused to send three Indian Police Service (IPS) officers ordered to move to Delhi on Central deputation over the attack on the BJP chief’s convoy by Trinamool supporters on 10 December.
“Is there a super emergency or emergency in Bengal? Have they announced an emergency in Bengal yet? Then why will it be implemented only in Bengal? The elections are coming that’s why? They want to scare the officers,” Mamata Banerjee fumed today.
Meanwhile, ace election strategist Prashant Kishor on Monday dared the BJP when he said that the party would “struggle to cross double digits” in the 294-member Assembly and vowed to quit Twitter if it did better than he predicted.
“For all the hype AMPLIFIED by a section of supportive media, in reality BJP will struggle to CROSS DOUBLE DIGITS in #WestBengal PS: Please save this tweet and if BJP does any better I must quit this space!” he tweeted.
Senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya retorted: “With the ongoing BJP tsunami in Bengal, after forming the government we will see the country lose a poll strategist.”
Interestingly, many of the TMC rebels who switched sides to the BJP blamed Kishor for their move.
“The very people on the backs of whom the party was created are now being sidelined, humiliated and outcast. In their stead, the individuals have now hired external assistance, people with no knowledge of ground realities and no knowledge of the sacrifice it actually takes to work for a shared goal as ambitious as creating the West Bengal of our dreams,” Suvendu Adhikari wrote in an open letter shortly before joining the BJP.
