Hitting out at Shah’s claim about the degrading quality of education in the state, Mamata Banerjee boasted that “99.96 per cent of schools has electricity.”
Home Minister Amit Shah and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday countered Amit Shah’s claim that there was a lack of development in West Bengal and listed out a string of achievements that the state had earned under her.
During his recent tour to West Bengal, Home Minister Shah had said, “Bengal had a chunk of 1/3rd of India’s entire GDP when India got independence. Today, it has reduced to minimalistic levels after three decades of Communist rule and 1 decade of TMC rule. Bengal’s per-person income was nearly double of Maharashtra’s in 1960. Today, it is not even half of India’s business capital! Who’s responsible for this?”
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“Bengal stands on 20th in industrial growth out of 32 in India and its CAGR stands just 5.74% today. The growth rate in service sector in 5.8% and it stands on 28th. FDI in Bengal continues to stand at just 1% from 2011 till date. There’s no space to fall below! TMC govt can count that as an achievement. TMC is a family party worrying only for its nephew,” he added.
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Alleging that Shah painted Bengal as a “horror house” during his two-day visit to the state last week, Banerjee said at a press conference, “Where was Amit Shah before 2011? What was Bengal’s condition then? Bengal is now shining.”
The West Bengal Chief Minister then went on to list everything that the state had achieved so far during her tenure.
“Bengal is number one in eradication of poverty. In providing 100 days’ work, Bengal is number one. From rural roads to rural housing to minority development, Bengal is number one. These are Government of India’s data,” she said.
About GDP and FDI, Banerjee said that the TMC government had managed to keep the GSDP of West Bengal at 7.28 per cent, while the national figure was down at 4.8 per cent.
“He spoke a lot about FDI. FDI has increased by 736 per cent since 2011. This state has received more than Rupees 22,000 crore as FDI. The GOI has noted all these,” she said.
Hitting out at Shah’s claim about the degrading quality of education in the state, the TMC supremo boasted that “99.96 per cent of schools in West Bengal has electricity.”
“Each and every school in the state has proper washrooms. Does he want to go and check for himself? We’ll sanitise everything properly,” joked Banerjee.
Earlier on the day, veteran TMC leader Saugata Roy had also addressed the press to counter Shah’s claims and said that during their tenure in power, Bengal’s GDP had grown by 53 per cent, the highest by any Indian state during that time period.
Talking about per capita income, Roy – the Dum Dum MP, pointed out that with Rupees 115,748 per capita GDP, West Bengal fared much better than some BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
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