Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today lambasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing a massive gathering at Sahaganj Dunlop ground and urged people to ensure a BJP rout in the upcoming Assembly election and then in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

A horde of popular television and cinema actors, cricketers and footballers joined TMC and took the flag from party supremo Banerjee.

In her address, the chief minister enumerated how the Modi led central government has failed in every sector and spiralled people into more hardships and torrid times and hence, she said, the BJP has lost its right to retain power. Their defeat in the Assembly poll would emphasise their flawed policies and misdeeds.

The Modi government has become a fountainhead of anti-people, anti-national policies, she alleged and cites the examples of demonetisation, GST, bids to privatise Coal India, railways, SAIL, BSNL, and the recently three new farm laws which she called are ‘ruinous’.

She warned of BJP’s ‘fake media, fake social media posts and fake propaganda’ which has permeated the discourse and misguides the masses. The Prime Minister hasn’t spoken a word on the shutting of Dunlop factory and the workers who now live in immense difficulties.

In 2016, a Bill was passed in the Assembly towards undertaking the closed Dunlop and Jesop factories which was forwarded to the BJP government for its approval but no action has been taken on the Bill, she said. The world has hailed the beneficiary schemes and projects implement by the state government, and even the backward classes, tribal are now enjoying a better standard of living; 2 lakh crores will be spent to give access to drinking water to every village, she added.

“Narendra Modi is the biggest ‘dangabaaz’ (rioter) in the country… What has happened to Trump, he (Modi) will meet an even worse fate. Nothing can be gained from violence. I will be the goalkeeper in the assembly polls and you (BJP) will not be able to score a single goal. All shots will fly above the goal post,” Banerjee said.

She pilloried Modi for misusing the CBI and other central agencies for alleged vindictiveness and grilling a housewife as a suspect in coal smuggling and said it was “an insult to women”.

May I ask the BJP leaders about their connection with Pawan Ruyia and others involved in illegal coal mining and pilferage, she said.