Unlike TMC, we won't label Mamata Banerjee as outsider when she visits other states: BJP leader

The West Bengal BJP in Bengal said on Saturday that it had no qualms if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee toured different states across the country, and unlike the TMC boss, who labelled leaders from Delhi as "outsiders", the saffron camp won't create a ruckus over her visits.

Addressing a press meet, BJP spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said if the TMC boss, on her return from Goa, went ahead with her proposed trip to Benaras in UP, it will make his party happy as Banerjee will get to see "how the riverfront has been developed in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency".

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"We remember what Mamata Banerjee had said when leaders from Delhi and other states came to Bengal. Her party had described them as outsiders. But the BJP is not narrow-minded. We believe that the TMC supremo and her party members can go anywhere in the country for their endeavours," Bhattacharya told reporters. He further quipped that the CM must be currently admiring Goa's landscapes.

The feisty TMC supremo is currently campaigning for her party in the poll-bound western state. "We hope that she sticks to her plan of visiting Benares. She will certainly enjoy her trip to the holy city, where a spree of development initiatives has been taken under the leadership of Narendra Modi," Bhattacharya said.

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"Banerjee should visit the Ganga ghats and see how these have been renovated. Perhaps the trip will inspire her to refurbish the river ghats in Kolkata and its neighbourhood," Bhattacharya claimed.

Asked about TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee's assertions that the BJP was "thwarting his party's campaigns in Tripura" as it was afraid of losing assembly polls there in 2023, the saffron party spokesperson said no one has stopped the leaders of the Mamata Banerjee-led camp from entering the northeastern state.

To a question about the relentless rise in fuel prices, Bhattacharya said that the Centre was doing its bit to control the prices, but the state, too, could have helped mitigate the woes of common people by partially waiving the tax it charges on petrol and diesel.

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