Mamata Banerjee, Trinamul Congress chairperson, coming down heavily on the Election Commission of India (ECI) for training of BLOs (booth level officers), in New Delhi, without intimating her, said: “The Commission is helping the BJP to win the election. It has become an office of the BJP. They are deleting the name of the genuine voters. Do not try this in Bengal. I urge people to come out on the streets and resist this. I will not allow the deletion of any genuine voter.”
She was addressing a gathering after the completion of a 3-km rally to protest against the attack and harassment of migrant workers in the BJP-ruled states in Birbhum this afternoon.
Miss Banerjee, holding a picture of Rabindranath Tagore started the Bhasaha Andolan, her protest against the alleged torture on Bengali-speaking migrant workers and virtually turning it into a mass movement. With this, she set the ball rolling for the Assembly polls.
Miss Banerjee urged people to resist any attack on the Bengali-speaking migrant workers. She walked with a Bengali alphabet in hand and was flanked by actor-turned-politician Satabdi Roy, who carried a portrait of Tagore. Quoting Tagore’s poem “Where the mind is without fear”, she said: “The poet had asked us to be fearless and embrace freedom of thought. He was against any kind of narrowness.”
Thousands of people from all walks of life joined the rally which started from Tourist Lodge More and ended at Jambuni more. Two MPs from Birbhum, Satabdi Roy and Asit Mal, state ministers Firhad Hakim, Malay Ghatak and district leaders, including Ashis Banerjee, deputy speaker, Anubrata Mondol and Kajal Sheikh also attended the rally.
During her march, she had interacted with people standing on both sides of the barricade, waved at them and sometimes stopped for pictures.
The TMC chairperson warned the EC against deletion of even a single genuine voter. She said it will not be tolerated and there will be no NRC in Bengal so long she is in power. Urging the migrant workers from state to return, she said: “There is no point staying in other states, facing humiliation. We may not give you sumptuous food, but a square meal a day will be assured.”
Without naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she said: “You go abroad and embrace the head of the state in Saudi Arabia and Maldives but then why attack on the minorities here in India,” she said, adding that recently a worker from the minority community was killed and mutilated in Gujarat. “I do not want a country where there is hatred for others. This is not the India I have seen from my childhood,” she maintained.
In an oblique reference to the BJP and the Centre, she reminded the people of the role of Bengal in the Independence movement. “Bengal had produced the highest number of revolutionaries, who laid down their lives for the motherland. Rabindranath and Nazrul had inspired the revolutionaries through their poems and patriotic songs. “How can they forget the contribution of Sri Ramakrishna, Swamiji, Netaji, CR Das and others. Gandhiji had respect and love for Bengal and spent 15 August, 1947 in Beliaghata when the country was celebrating Independence.