There will be 'khela' across the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asserted here on Wednesday as she threw down the gauntlet to the BJP with her now-famous election warcry of 'Khela hobe' (game is on) that led her to victory over the saffron party in the state.
“If Bengal could do it, so can the other states,” she said, addressing the media here.
The Trinamool Congress chief, who is a bitter critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said in a lighter vein that she has learnt Hindi from him and even chimed "Kem cho(how are you)" in Gujarati, which, she said, she learnt from Home Minister Amit Shah.
Asked if she has decided on a slogan for a united opposition like 'Khela Hobe' which is used in her assembly poll campaign, Banerjee quipped in Hindi, “Poore desh mein khela hoga (The game will be played across the country).
"It is a continuous process... When Modi will fight the next election, it will be with the country,” the chief minister, who is on her first visit to the national capital after defeating the BJP in West Bengal, said implying that it will be Modi versus a united opposition in the next Lok Sabha polls.
When asked how her Hindi has significantly improved over the last few years, Banerjee quipped, “Have learnt Hindi from Narendra Modi and Gujarati from Amit Shah.”
Gujarat, the home state of Modi and Shah, will go to polls in December next year, and on July 21, when the TMC observes 'Martyrs' Day, it had aired Gujarati translation of Banerjee’s speech in all districts of the state.
It was also beamed for the first time, also in other states like Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.
The landslide victory in the West Bengal Assembly polls has buoyed Banerjee to try and reach out to the rest of the country.
She is being positioned by her party as the face of a united opposition in their bid to oust the BJP in the 2024 general election. The CM, however, has been ambivalent about it.
“You are asking me the name of the child even before it is born,” she quipped to a query related to a "united opposition".
Hitting out at the Modi government, Banerjee said that the "mismanagement" of the coronavirus crisis will hurt the saffron party.
"I want to see sachhe din, bahut achhe din dekh liya (I want to see truthful days, have seen enough of good days," the Trinamool Congress chief said, in a jibe at the BJP's 2014 poll slogan of 'achhe din aane wale hai' (Good days are coming).
Throughout the briefing with the media, she took digs at the Modi government.
Clad in her trademark white saree and sandals, Banerjee spoke both in Hindi and English and also expressed her love for the sweets of Varanasi, Prime Minister Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.
“Narendra Modi was popular in 2019….Today, they have not kept a record of the bodies, last rites were denied and bodies were thrown in river Ganga. Those who lost their loved ones will not forget and forgive,” she said.
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