Bangla row: Mamata Banerjee continues her tirade against Narendra Modi

KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continued her tirade against Narendra Modi and told an election rally on Thursday that “the more Modi will come to Bengal, more our votes will increase” .

“In Bengal, Bengalis, Non-Bengalis , Hindus, Muslims and people from all communities are living together and there have not been any hitches among them. But Modi is coming to our state to draw a line of division between Bengali and non-Bengali-speaking population, between Hindus and Muslims and his narrow interest for doing so is to get votes. We and the people of Bengal will not tolerate this and I urge the electors not to cast a single vote to the BJP,” Mamata told the rally at Titagarh, organised to campaign for the party’s Barrackpore Lok Sabha candidate Dinesh Trivedi.

“I observe Roza and attend Ramadan gatherings. It is my government which has granted leave to our employees in Chhat Puja. Also my government has granted leave in Sab-e-Barat . People in Bengal are living in complete peace and there is no communal tension in our state and that is why Danga Babu (read Modi) is upset and angry with me,” she said.

“I had no idea that Modi will come to our state to draw a line of division among the people. I could have prevented him from coming to Bengal to divide our people on the basis of religion. It would have taken just two minutes for me to stop Modi at the airport. But we didn’t do that because this is not the culture of Bengal.” Refuting Modi's charges that women were not safe in her regime , Mamata said: “Women are scared of Modi. Modi also does not know how to honour women.”

She also denied his statement that she had raised a hue and cry in Parliament in 2005 demanding discussion on the issue of Bangladeshi infiltrators. “This is a total lie. My party leaders had told me that lakhs and lakhs of bogus ration cards had been issued and distributed among CPM sympathisers . I just wanted a discussion on this and not on Bangladeshi infiltrators ,” she said.

“The BJP is now collecting Modi PM fund. We have never heard anything of this. This Modi-for-PM fund is illegal ... How can a political party collect fund for PM?,” she said. On Wednesday, Mamata addressed a rally at Metiabruz where she called the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate a “donkey” and claimed that Modi didn’t know anything about the fact.