BJP lacks faith in its leaders of Bengal, importing outsiders ahead of polls: TMC

The Trinamool Congress on Saturday alleged that the BJP is bringing in functionaries to West Bengal from outside ahead of the assembly elections as its central leadership does not have faith in local leaders.

The BJP has an "assembly line for manufacturing lies" which are circulated through its propaganda machinery, senior TMC MP Kakali Ghosh Dastidar said while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here. "The BJP central leadership has imported functionaries from other states since they do not have faith in the local leadership," Ghosh Dastidar, a three-time MP from Barasat constituency, claimed. With an eye on the West Bengal assembly elections due in April-May 2021, the BJP has divided the state into five organisational zones and appointed central leaders in charge of those.

"The BJP has no leader in Bengal, while the state has produced the country's best chief minister in Mamata Banerjee. There is no one comparable to her," the senior TMC leader said. "As in the automobile industry, an assembly line for manufacturing lies is at work in the BJP and its propaganda machinery is circulating those lies," Ghosh Dastidar claimed, without citing any specific example.

Regarding disgruntled TMC minister Suvendu Adhikari, who has of late been holding public meetings independent of the party or its logo at various places, she wondered who is funding his programmes.

"Which is the richest party in the country and has a propaganda machinery that spreads lies?" she asked, but did not name any party.

To a question, Ghosh Dastidar said that she is not aware of any bitter comment made by Adhikari about the TMCs leadership and he is is an important member of the party's decision making body and a minister holding key departments.

Adhikari holds portfolios such as Transport, Water Resources and Irrigation.

Ghosh Dastidar alleged that while Dalits and women are being attacked in different places of the country including Hathras in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, its leaders are having food at the homes of such people ahead of elections.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had lunch at the house of a tribal man in Bankura district and with a Matua family near Kolkata during his visit to the state earlier this month.

"It's not 'Beti bachao beti padhao' that they are pursuing but in reality, it is beti jwalao (burn) that they believe in," the MP, who had gone to Hathras as part of a TMC team of parliamentarians, said.

A 19-year-old Dalit woman, whose death in a Delhi hospital two weeks after she was brutally gang-raped sparked protests and anguish, was cremated near her home in Hathras in the dead of the night in September.

Ghosh Dastidar alleged that Dalits and minorities are the worst-off during the present BJP regime and accused it of having divided the people of the country.

Alleging that the BJP-led government at the Centre has failed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic in the country, the TMC MP said that it should resign.

The government had been warned in Parliament way back in January about the outbreak of the disease and was urged to take preventive steps, "but the Centre did not take any action, while a nationwide lockdown was announced on a four- hour notice when things went out of control", she said.

She claimed that Mamata Banerjee is the only chief minister in the country to have paid for the fare of migrant workers to the Railways to bring them back home.

"Mamata Banerjee has given free ration to the people of the state in advance, but what has the Centre done?" she asked.

Ghosh Dastidar also claimed that women are making advances in education in the state and trafficking has stopped under the stewardship of Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP government at the Centre relies on ordinances to bypass Parliament, she claimed, asserting that the saffron party has no respect for the Constitution.