The BJP’s prime minister candidate Narendra Modi says ‘infiltration’ from Bangladesh must be stopped.
The chief minister of India’s western state of Gujarat, while addressing a rally, in Kolkata on Wednesday, said that neither the Indian government, headed by the Congress, nor the West Bengal government, long run by the CPI(M)-led Left Front, had done anything to check the illegal influx from the neighbouring country.
“This has caused major demographic changes which worry us,” Modi told the rally at Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Grounds.
Modi tried to play on Bengali sentiments when he said the Congress never cared for the interests of West Bengal and its people.
He said though Pranab Mukherjee was the most experienced Congress leader in 2004, the party President Sonia Gandhi chose Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister.
“This was unfortunate. Mukherjee should have been the Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi,” Modi told the rally.
He did not attack Bengal’s ruling Trinamul Congress directly.
But referring to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recent call for a non-Congress, non-BJP government in Delhi, Modi said the ‘those who advocate a Third Front are the prophets of doom’.
He said one reason why western India had developed was because none of the so-called ‘Third Front parties’ had ruled there — and the reason for the backwardness of eastern India was because these ‘Third front parties’ had ruled many states including West Bengal in the east.
“The Trinamul cannot be the substitute for the CPI(M) or Congress. It has to be the BJP.”
Modi tickled the Bengali’s sense of pride.
“Indian nationalism originated in Bengal, so we expected its people to vote for a strong party that will keep the nation together and help it grow as a world power,” he said.
BJP President Rajnath Singh held out a sop for Mamata Banerjee’s government.
“We think her demand for waiving off the interest servicing on Bengal’s debts for a few years is a genuine demand. The Communists destroyed Bengal’s economy by reckless financial management, so Mamata is justified in seeking redress,” said Singh.
But he did not commit a BJP-led government to such a waiver if elected to power in Delhi.
Mamata Banerjee’s angst with Congress is traced back to the Indian government’s refusal to waive off the interest servicing commitments of the West Bengal government after the Trinamul came to power in 2011.
Modi was also profuse in praise for Bengal’s greatest sons — Rabindranath Tagore, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Swami Vivekananda.
Source: Bd news24
