Control your Home Minister first: Didi on Modi 2nd seat dig

Dinhata/Natabari/Falakata (WB), April 2

Asserting that she was winning the election from Nandigram, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying she did not need his “suggestion” on contesting from an alternative seat.

The Prime Minister had on Thursday asked Banerjee to clarify whether there was truth in “rumours” that she would file her nomination for another seat going to the polls in the last phase, maintaining that the TMC chief had admitted defeat in Nandigram.

“I want to tell the Prime Minister to control his Home Minister first and then try to control us. We are not your party members that you will control us,” Banerjee said at an election rally in Dinhata in the north Bengal district of Coochbehar. Banerjee had on Friday alleged that Shah was influencing central forces to behave in a partisan manner during the Bengal polls. “I am not your party’s member that you will suggest I contest from another seat. I have contested from Nandigram and will win from there,” she added.

At a rally in Uluberia on Thursday, Modi said the people of Bengal were prepared if she went anywhere else to contest, anticipating defeat in Nandigram, where she was up against BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, her former aide. Banerjee, who began her north Bengal tour with the rally here, alleged that the election was not being conducted by the Election Commission but by Amit Shah, the Home Minister. She also alleged that the central forces were being used to intimidate the voters. “I want more than 200 seats, since anything less than that will mean they (BJP) will buy the ‘gaddars’ (traitors),” Banerjee said, apparently admitting that TMC MLAs might be up for grabs if her party won by a slender margin in the elections. Speaking at Natabari, also in Coochbehar, the CM said leaders from Tamil Nadu, where assembly elections would be held next week, had contacted her over income tax raids on relatives of DMK leader MK Stalin, claiming that these were done at the behest of Shah. She alleged raids by central investigative agencies in Bengal were for similar political considerations. PTI