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Journalism of Courage
Refuting Narendra Modi’s claims about poor governance in West Bengal, Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday called the Prime Minister “expiry Babu” and challenged him to a “direct debate”.
Addressing an election rally in Cooch Behar district, Mamata alleged that PM Modi’s claims about the TMC government’s performance were outright lies. “I am not Modi, I don’t tell lies,” she said.
The West Bengal CM claimed that 12,000 farmers committed suicide during PM Modi’s five-year rule in the country. “However, the income of farmers in Bengal has increased three times under the TMC rule,” Banerjee said.
READ | BJP will free Bengal from ‘speed breaker Didi’, says PM Modi
Hours before Mamata’s retaliation, PM Modi, while addressing a rally in West Bengal’s Siliguri, stated that BJP was committed to free the people of Bengal from “speed-breaker Didi”. “It is true that we could not usher in speedy development in West Bengal like we did in other states. This is due to the fact that there is a speed-breaker in West Bengal which is known as Didi (Mamata Banerjee). She does not want to eradicate poverty. If poverty goes away, then their politics will come to an end. They want to see poverty and that’s why they have stopped development projects for the poor,” Modi said.
Modi also attacked the Left in the same breath and called TMC and the CPI(M) two sides of the same coin. “Earlier, the Left used to do this and now Didi is doing it more aggressively. Left and TMC are two sides of the same coin. But they must remember that their fight is with a ‘chowkidar’,” he said.
