West Bengal, May 7:
BJP president Amit Shah Tuesday alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is not allowing people to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in the state, and wondered if the Lord’s name cannot be taken in India, will it be uttered in Pakistan. Shah also dared Banerjee to arrest him for chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ at the multiple election rallies he addressed in the state on Tuesday. “Lord Ram is a part of the culture of India… Can anybody stop people from taking his name? I want to ask Mamata didi, if Shri Ram’s name is not taken in India, will it be chanted in Pakistan?” he said. “I want to tell Mamata didi that this is West Bengal and not Pakistan… I am going to Kolkata from here (Bishnupur), put me in jail if you have the guts,” the BJP chief said. He addressed rallies in Ghatal, Keshiari and Bishnupur in West Bengal. Shah claimed that Banerjee had stopped her car a few days ago to tell people that they will be put in jail if they chant the name of Lord Ram. A video had appeared in the social media that showed Banerjee stopping her car at a place in West Midnapore district on Saturday, and chasing some persons who chanted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as her carcade was crossing the area. Shah said he has come to know that the CM has cancelled permission for two rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the state – one at Purulia and the other at Bankura, scheduled for Thursday. “Can you (Banerjee) prevent your defeat in this manner?” he asked. On Modi invoking the Bofors scandal, the BJP president wondered if reminding people what had happened was tantamount to insulting former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. “What wrong has PM Narendra Modi done by saying that the Bofors scam happened during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure… Rahul baba says his father has been insulted. Is it an insult to be reminded of what had happened?” Shah said. The BJP chief was referring to Modi’s recent remarks at a rally in Uttar Pradesh, where he said that Rajiv Gandhi’s life ended as “bhrashtachari no. 1” (corrupt no. 1 ).
Shah also asked Rahul Gandhi whether or not the Bofors scandal, the Bhopal gas tragedy, blunder of sending peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka or the massacre of Kashmiri pandits happened during his father’s tenure as prime minister from 1984 to 1989.
He claimed that the Congress and its partners in the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ have “abused Modi on 51 different occasions”.
Shah said Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi had recently likened Modi with the character of Duryodhana from the ‘Mahabharata’, and asserted that “people of the country will tell on May 23 whether PM Modi is Duryodhana or Arjuna (another character from the epic)”.
Results of Lok Sabha polls will be declared on May 23.
Shah also said that Congress leaders have compared Modi with Osama Bin Laden and Hitler in the past.
The polls in West Bengal are for restoring democracy in the state, where the BJP will win “more than 23 seats” out of the total 42 Lok Sabha seats, he asserted.
“The Narendra Modi government has given Rs 4,24,800 crore to West Bengal in its five-year tenure, but it has not reached the people, and, instead, gone to the syndicates,” Shah alleged.
He said the UPA-II government under the then prime minister Manmohan Singh had granted only around Rs 1,32,000 crore to the state.
The BJP chief reiterated his party’s resolve to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state to flush out illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
