Countering Union home minister Amit Shah’s statement over the death of 25 people in Anandapur warehouses fire, Trinamul Congress’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday said that the Centre should take responsibility for the death of 140 people in West Bengal due to Special Intensive Revision (SIR) fear.
Abhishek was speaking at Kolkata airport on his way to Delhi.
Earlier in the day, Shah had targeted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over the deaths in Anandapur and claimed that the state government was trying to shield the culprits.
In response to this, Abhishek Banerjee said, “If the state government is responsible for 25 deaths, then isn’t the central government responsible for the 140 deaths in the SIR process? The BJP engages in vulture politics over dead bodies. This is unfortunate.”
Abhishek said that CM Mamata Banerjee will go to Delhi tomorrow and has a specific work schedule. On 2 February, we will meet the Election Commission. We have been given a tentative time of 4 p.m. The rest of the schedule will be shared later, he said.
At the airport, Abhishek claimed that the police arrested the factory owner immediately after the incident. “They (BJP leaders) are frequently visiting Bengal now because elections are approaching. The people will give the answer. Nirav Modi also travelled abroad with the Prime Minister. It is normal for industrialists to travel abroad with the Chief Minister. But engaging in dirty politics over a tragic incident is an old tactic of the BJP.”
The Trinamul Congress’s national general secretary attacked the central government and the BJP, questioning why there is no mention of infiltrators’ names in the draft voter list.
Abhishek said that the BJP had claimed that one to one and a half crore Rohingya and other infiltrators would be removed from the voter list in the state. “However, the draft list published by the Election Commission has refuted that theory. If there were indeed so many infiltrators in the state, why is there no mention of them in the draft voter list? The central government and the Election Commission are deliberately trying to create an atmosphere of fear and tarnish the image of Bengal,” he said.
On the Centre targeting the state on sheltering infiltrators, Abhishek said: “Those who speak about border security should answer this: their own representative, BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar had earlier stated that there will be no border with Bangladesh if BJP comes to power and that BJP will remove the border. Did Amit Shah issue a show cause notice to Sarkar? Either Jagannath Sarkar is right, or Amit Shah is.”
Last time too, they claimed they would get 200+ seats. During the Lok Sabha polls, the Prime Minister himself said that their best result would come from West Bengal, but you saw the results. Many exit polls also predicted BJP would get 30 or more seats, but when the results came out, the game changed. They will keep making predictions. Whatever I have said in Bengal, TMC cannot be made weak, said Abhishek on the TMC getting more seats this time than last state polls.
They only repeat the same rhetoric of “Ghuspetiya”. What are your examples of “Ghuspetiya”? People like Jhulan Goswami and Amartya Sen, or Md Shami and Dipak Adhikari? If they do not spare even Amartya Sen, what else can you expect from them? He asked.
He blamed the Centre for holding state’s money. “Let them show where they gave Bengal Rs 10 lakh crore. Let them release a white paper showing which schemes received this money. Then let them also show how much money they have taken from Bengal in the last 12 years since BJP came to power,” he said.