'Mamata's ego hampering state's development'

BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya on Wednesday hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for hampering the state's development in order to "satisfy her own ego". He accused the TMC supremo of being more interested in saving her chair rather than serving the masses.

"She is more interested in saving her own chair rather than serving the masses. She doesn't accept the ruling of Supreme Court, Election Commission, Niti Aayog, Prime Minister and central government. She is behaving as if Bengal is not part of India but a separate country altogether. Just to satisfy her own ego Mamata Banerjee is hampering the interests of the nation," Vijayvargiya said while addressing party workers here.

His comments came in the backdrop of Banerjee on Tuesday declining an invitation to attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with the chiefs of political parties on simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls among other subjects and asking the Centre to instead prepare a white paper on 'one nation, one election' for consultations.

The BJP state leadership had organized an internal meeting of party cadres on membership drive in the state.

Accusing Banerjee of being desperate after losing the parliamentary polls to the saffron party, BJP's Bengal minder, Vijayvargiya said she and her party TMC are encouraging "infiltration" in order to serve it's vote bank politics.

"Her main purpose is to serve the vote bank politics. Now she is indulging in the division on the lines of Bengalis and non-Bengalis. Her politics of Muslim appeasement is affecting the state," he said.

Referring to recent attacks on BJP workers across the state, Vijayvargia urged party workers show restraint as BJP should behave in a responsible way as masses are looking up to the saffron party as an alternative.

"It is her duty to control her party cadres who have let loose mayhem on our party workers. We can reply to them in the language they understand but we won't do that. We believe in democracy and democratic values," he said.

BJP state president Dilip Ghosh too criticized Banerjee and said she was yet to recover from her defeat in the parliamentary polls. He said because of this, the TMC supremo was making excuses to avoid any meeting convened by the Centre or the saffron party.