Has ECI decided Bengal poll schedule on Modi-Shah’s advice, asks Mamata Banerjee

She also alleged that the decision was taken to suit the convenience of the BJP.

“Has this been done with the advice of Modi and Amit Shah? Has this been done to facilitate their campaigning so that they can finish Assam and Tamil Nadu before coming to Bengal? This won’t help BJP. We will demolish them,” Mamata Banerjee said at a press conference in Kolkata.

Mamata Banerjee also objected to the Election Commission’s decision to hold polls in the same districts in different phases.

“They have divided districts in part 1 part 2. Since we are powerful in South 24 Parganas, it is being done in three phases. They are teaching us BA part 1, part 2” Mamata Banerjee said.

The TMC chief alleged that the BJP was trying to divide the people on religion. “They are diving people on lines of Hindu-Muslim. They are dividing people into Bengali and non-Bengali. No problem. The game is on. The game will play in eight phases. We will play and win. They are dividing the entire country. But let me tell you, I know Bengal very well,” she said.

She also said, “We know people of West Bengal. The people of the state will answer this insult.”

Referring to the BJP, though without naming them, she said, “I don’t care though. You will be routed despite all the conspiracies being hatched. This is an insult to the people of Bengal and they would give a fitting response.”

She said that the ECI should not “see things through the eyes of the BJP.”

“I have seen this list in the BJP’s party office and today I see the same list outside,” Banerjee alleged.

She further described herself as Bengal’s own daughter and vowed to resist efforts by ‘outsider forces’ to rule Bengal.

“I am really sorry and shocked. We know all the drama Vivek Dubey created in 2019 (Lok Sabha elections) when he was deputed as the observer here. The same man is being deputed again,” the chief minister said.

In 2019, the ECI had appointed senior IPS officer Vivek Dubey as the special police observer for West Bengal.

“The BJP has the power of the agencies (central). The BJP has the power of the government of India. But the central government cannot misuse its powers for a state election. If you do this, you will make a blunder and face the music,” she said.