Mamata Banerjee skips rally and stays mum on Amit Shah's jibe on West Bengal government

KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday skipped the rally organised by her nephew and chief of the party’s youth wing Abhisekh to counter BJP chief Amit Shah who on Sunday asked the people to oust Trinamool Congress from power and bring the saffron party in the state for the sake of overall development.

There was a huge expectation in the political circles here that Mamata will attend the youth Trinamool rally and give a fitting reply to Shah, who on Sunday blasted at the chief minister while addressing an impressive rally of BJP near Victoria House which was so far been used exclusively by the ruling party for holding it’s martyrs day rally on July 21 every year.

But the chief minister did not attend the rally on Monday and remained silent on Shah’s observations about her party and government.

Also, she did not make any comment on any social networking sites like Facebook to counter Shah politically. Mamata attended a number of functions at Batanagar in South 24-Parganas during the day, but refrained herself from making any comment on Shah’s charges against her.

Her nephew Abhisekh who ran the show at Sahid Minar ground on Monday, however, said “a tigress does not accept any challenge from a tiny mouse. Amit Shah knows nothing about Bengal and any of our block presidents are competent enough to reply politically what he had said yesterday.” Interestingly, Abhisekh on Monday managed to convince BJP state president Rahul Sinha’s brother Sudip to join the ruling party. “Sudip has joined us today and he will be working for us as one of our important youth leaders in south Kolkata,” Abhisekh announced during the rally.

Abhisekh also said that during next year’s elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), BJP would not be able to win a single of the total 141 seats in the civic body.