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As the battle heats up in run up to state assembly polls in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Mamata Banerjee did not shy away from trading barbs.
PM Modi said that under TMC's 15-year rule, the unemployment in West Bengal has reached “a dangerous level”. (PTI/ANI)Banerjee sought to attack the Prime Minister over his address to the nation on Saturday and said that it was “deeply unfortunate” that “chose to mislead the nation rather than address it honestly”.
Modi, on the other hand, kept up with his offensive against Trinamool Congress, which is currently in power in West Bengal, and Congress, and claimed that both the parties “colluded” to prevent from “ensuring more women enter legislative bodies.”
He was referring to Lok Sabha not passing the constitutional amendment bill that sought to expand the lower house of the Parliament to make space 33 per cent reservation for women. The Opposition did not let the bill pass due to divide over delimitation exercise on the basis of the 2011 census.
‘Cowardly, hypocritical and fork-tongued’Reacting to Modi's address to the nation, in which he equated the aforementioned bill not being passed to “foeticide” by Congress and other Opposition parties, Banerjee challenged him to “have the courage” to address the nation from the floor of the Parliament next time, where he is subject to “scrutiny, challenge and accountability”.
She called Modi's address “cowardly, hypocritical and fork-tongued” .
Banerjee also said that her party has “always championed higher political representation for women”, citing the percentage of women MPs from her party.
Also read: PM Modi raises Bengal poll pitch with jab on Mamata over women's bill: ‘Maha Jungle Raj'
She clarified that the opposition was not the women's quota bill but to the delimitation exercise which, she said, “the Modi Government was plotting to push through by using women as a shield for its vested political agenda.”
“What we are fundamentally opposed to is the altering of Babasaheb Ambedkar's Constitution, the division of this nation and the usurpation of power through gerrymandering, by redrawing political contours to hand greater representation to BJP-ruled states at the expense of others. This is an assault on federal democracy. And we will not watch it happen in silence,” she wrote in a lengthy post on X.
Banerjee also questioned the timing of the bill, asking why the Women's Reservation Bill was rushed three years after being passed in 2023 amid the ongoing state elections.
“And why couple it with Delimitation?” she asked.
'TMC's reign of ‘maha jungle raj’'PM Modi, during a rally in West Bengal's Purulia on Sunday, doubled down on his criticism of the incumbent TMC government, saying that it has a reign of “maha jungle raj” because of which, the state's tribal districts are lagging behind.
"In TMC's reign of 'maha jungle raj', the tribal districts are lagging behind. Roads, electricity, water, schools, hospitals... everything is in a dire state. Tribals do not have control over their own land. TMC's syndicate has seized control over the tribals' land," he said.
Modi also sought to attack TMC over the cash-for-job teachers recruitment case and unemployment levels in the state, claiming that not work gets done there without corruption.
He said that under TMC's 15-year rule, the unemployment in West Bengal has reached “a dangerous level”.
“TMC ministers robbed the recruitment of teachers, defrauding thousands of young people. In the TMC's utter jungle raj, nothing gets done without bribery. When bribery is forced, how will industry thrive?” he said.
Modi also expressed confidence that the BJP will form government in the state after the upcoming polls, saying that while he usually does not make predictions regarding states, everyone he is meeting this time is telling him that the "BJP government is certain.
"After hearing all this, I'm saying that this time the BJP is going to form the government with a massive majority," he said.
West Bengal polls will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29. The counting will be done on May 4.