india

Updated: Feb 02, 2019 23:52 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed on Saturday that Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal administration allowed extortion rackets to thrive in the state and accused her government of killing middle- class aspirations, launching one of the most strident attacks yet on the Trinamool Congress on its own turf in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

Modi made the comments during two rallies in Bengal, exactly a fortnight after chief minister Banerjee organised an opposition show of strength in Kolkata, where she shared the stage with leaders of 24 parties including the Congress.

“Trinamool Congress is known for extorting ‘triple T’ — Trinamool Tolabaji Tax. It cannot go on forever,” the Prime Minister said, using a Bangla word that is used in the context of organized extortion rings.

“The TMC is killing people’s aspirations, but the Centre will fulfil their (people’s) dreams. The TMC doesn’t take interest in initiating development projects where there is no share for the syndicate... where there is no ‘malai’ (cream),” he said at a rally in Durgapur.

Tolabaji refers to instances where extortionists, often boasting political links, collect extortion money from people engaged in legal activity such as building a house. Syndicate, in this context, refers to a related racket in which members of the public are forced to make business deals – for instance, purchasing building material if one were constructing a house – from suppliers who hold sway in the region.

At another event of the Scheduled Caste Matua community at Thakurnagar in North 24 Parganas district, Modi made a strong pitch for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, insisting it would bring “justice and respectability” to those who faced religious persecution. He also requested the TMC supremo to facilitate the passage of the Bill. The Matuas originally hail from erstwhile East Pakistan and began migrating to West Bengal at the beginning of the 1950s, mostly due to religious persecution in what is now Bangladesh.

The Citizenship bill aims to give citizenship to people from religious minority communities in neighbouring countries, most of which are Muslim majority nations.

Hours after Modi finished speaking at his rally, Banerjee lashed out at the PM on a television channel. “We are against the Bill. It has to be withdrawn,” she said in reference to Modi’s appeal to the TMC to support the Bill. “His (Modi’s) time is up, but he is not mentally prepared to go”.

Banerjee then commented on Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots and said that “in true-Fascist style, the PM was letting loose central investigation agencies upon opposition leaders”.

Modi cut short his speech in Thakurnagar to barely 17 minutes while in Durgapur, he devoted most of his 44-minute address to the announcements made in the interim budget on Friday.

He said the proposed direct cash transfer of ₹6,000 to farmers was “historic” and slammed the farm loan waivers of recently elected Congress state governments, questioning whether they would ever reach small farmers. He also said that fighting corruption was the ‘mission’ of his life and wondered why Banerjee was “so afraid if she has done nothing wrong.”

“The country’s most powerful and famous family is also doing the rounds of the courts on charges of tax evasion and cheating,” said Modi, taking a potshot at the Congress’s Gandhis.

Union minister Rajnath Singh too addressed rallies in West Bengal’s Alipurduar and Cooch Behar in tandem with Modi and didn’t desist from taking swipes at the united front that opposition parties were trying to forge. “Even if it (the front) forms the government, who will take the driver’s seat? If someone steps on the accelerator, someone else will apply the brakes,” he said.