Kolkata: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday lashed out at the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, calling the state’s prevailing situation “maha jungle raj” and alleging that corruption, nepotism and appeasement of the ruling dispensation have prevented development in the state.
Addressing a massive gathering at Taherpur in Nadia district over the phone from Kolkata, Modi urged the people to provide a chance to the BJP in the upcoming assembly polls to form a “double engine government” in the state.
Dense fog at the venue prevented the Prime Minister’s helicopter from landing at the makeshift helipad there and forced him to return to the Kolkata airport.
“Let the TMC oppose me and BJP as much as it wants, but the ruling party cannot hold people to ransom, make them suffer and stop Bengal’s progress,” Modi said at the Parivartan Sankalpa Sabha, the fourth such meeting in Bengal this year.
“We will end TMC’s ‘maha jungle raj’ in Bengal where corruption, nepotism, and appeasement politics are ruling the roost,” Modi claimed.
He alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led party was opposing the ongoing SIR exercise to “save infiltrators from getting identified”.
Claiming that the popular sentiment on Bengal’s grassroots was to “gain freedom from TMC’s misrule”, the Prime Minister said, “the lanes and alleys of the state are resonating with cries of the slogan ‘Banchte chai, BJP tai’ (Need BJP to live).”
Earlier in the day, PM Modi inaugurated and laid foundation stone of multiple development works at Ranaghat in West Bengal’s Nadia district. This includes two national highway projects worth around Rs 3,200 crores.
One of the projects is the 66.7 km long four-Laning of Barajaguli-Krishnanagar Section of NH-34. He also laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the 17.6 km long Barasat-Barajaguli Section of NH-34.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), these projects will help in connecting Kolkata to Siliguri and will reduce the travel time for people by nearly two hours. They, the PMO said, will also help in improving the economic activities in the region and promote tourism.
These projects will ensure “faster and smoother movement of vehicles for unhindered traffic flow, reduced vehicle operating costs, and improve connectivity between Kolkata and other neighboring districts of West Bengal as well as with neighbouring countries,” the PMO said.
