In a blistering attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday demanded his resignation, saying the PM lacked the guts to respond to Pakistan minister’s warning to India.

Addressing a huge election rally at Bethuadahari town in Nadia district, the TMC supremo referred to Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s remark in which he warned India that it would respond with a strike in Kolkata to any “future misadventures”, and said: “Why does Prime Minister Modi remain silent when Pakistan’s Defence Minister says that Kolkata will be targeted? Is the blueprint of a Pahalgam-type attack ready before the election? You (Modi) remained silent since targeting Bengal is easy for you, but you don’t have the guts to respond to Pakistan’s Defence Minister. If the people of Bengal are targeted, Bengal will target Delhi.”

Questioning the Prime Minister for not raising the issue during his Cooch Behar rally on Sunday, the TMC supremo asked if the lives of Bengalis mattered to him and his government. “Do we not count as a state of the Indian Union? Or is Bengal only useful for milking votes and then left abandoned?” she said.

Hours later, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who is considered number 2 in the party, reinforced the CM’s demand, saying: “He (Asif) is sitting in Pakistan and threatening to attack Kolkata, while Modi is busy campaigning in Cooch Behar and asking people to remove the TMC…”

He also singled out Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for remaining silent. “Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh are silent. Shah calls us Bangladeshis and Pakistanis every day, but when Pakistan threatens Kolkata, he becomes a mute spectator. Is this your 56-inch chest?” he asked.

The TMC MP asserted that if Mamata Banerjee led the government at the Centre, India would respond to Pakistan in its “own language”. “The day Mamata Banerjee goes to Delhi, and there is an INDIA alliance government at the Centre, we will hit them by entering their territory,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the chief minister alleged that a conspiracy was afoot to “attack the people of Bengal” during the elections. “People are entering Bengal in buses with drugs. Cash is being flown into Bengal in flights… We have proof and will release the videos,” she said.

Continuing her attack on the Election Commission for large-scale deletions of genuine voters’ names in the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the chief minister said around 24 lakh names were restored in the rolls due to her efforts.

She also alleged that Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal was accompanied by BJP supporters during his visit to Nandigram on Sunday.

Banerjee alleged that “outsiders” from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are being brought in to oversee the elections, and that illegal assets are being moved using official channels.

The Election Commission officials rejected the CM’s charge, saying their objective is to ensure fear-free, peaceful, and fair elections in the state. All deployments of central forces are being carried out as per established standard operating procedure in an impartial manner, an official said.

The chief minister also called the central probe agencies – the NIA and CBI – puppets of the BJP government at the Centre, and claimed that central agencies were being used by the BJP to summon TMC leaders just before the elections to disrupt the democratic process.

Last week, Central agencies – CBI and ED – had summoned four TMC candidates for questioning in connection with several ongoing probes.

Asserting that she and her party, the TMC, do not support the gherao of judicial officers in Malda’s Mothabari, she said that the BJP had benefited from the division of votes in Bihar with the help of AIMIM. “We do not support any attack, but the officer who got the mastermind arrested has been sent to Tamil Nadu,” she alleged, referring to IPS officer Supratim Sarkar being deputed as an observer.

Meanwhile, the TMC supremo accused the BJP of interfering in personal dietary habits, citing incidents where vendors were allegedly thrashed for selling non-vegetarian food in BJP-ruled states. “Bengalis will eat fish and rice. You secretly consume non-veg; don’t your leaders eat it too?” she said, adding the people of Bengal would give a befitting response at the ballot box. —With PTI