KOLKATA: Former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday afternoon said that the excesses of the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state government would help the Trinamool Congress return to power in the state in the coming days.
“Do not work. The ordinary BJP supporters will teach their own party leadership a lesson soon. Very soon Trinamool Congress will return to power in West Bengal,” Mamata Banerjee said at a gathering in central Kolkata on the occasion of the foundation day celebration of Trinamool Congress’s students wing, Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP).
Speaking on the occasion, the former Chief Minister also accused the ruling BJP of using the police against Trinamool to satisfy a political vendetta.
“The police are not permitting us to hold meetings and rallies. I am saying clearly, soon I will go to the districts and arrange political programmes there. If the police do not give permission, I will hold a programme with the permission of the people. But I will no longer approach the Calcutta High Court for permission and waste the court’s time. If necessary, I will walk for miles. After that, I will see what they will do,” she said.
Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee, who is also Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, also spoke on the occasion. In his speech, he mainly targeted the “rebel but majority” faction in Trinamool led by expelled legislator Ritabrata Banerjee and also the 20 erstwhile Trinamool Lok Sabha members who had recently joined the virtually non-existent Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI).
“They are traitors. I will request our supreme leader Mamata Banerjee not to take them back to Trinamool in future,” Abhishek said.
He also attacked the BJP and the state administration over Thursday’s row in relation to the removal of a billboard from his party office on Camac Street in central Kolkata.
“Yesterday, they illegally removed the billboard and signboard of our party office. The entire Kolkata Police were deployed for that. I will tell the BJP to do as much violence as can be tolerated,” the Diamond Harbour MP said.
--IANS
