CM's Pak question for PM

AVIJIT SINHA, TT, 04 Jan 2020, Siliguri: Mamata Banerjee on Friday said she has a question: “I want to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi, doesn't he feel ashamed of comparing our country with Pakistan?” The Bengal chief minister posed the question at a public meeting in Siliguri before leading her first march in north Bengal against the CAANRC- NPR, where the large turnout surprised even Trinamul leaders. (See Page 8) “Are you Pakistan's ambassador? Have you been put in this post to glorify Pakistan day and night?” she continued.

Modi had said in Karnataka on Thursday that those raising slogans against the amended citizenship law should protest against Pakistan and persecution of minorities in that country. 

“If someone says that I am unemployed, give me job, he says, 'Go to Pakistan',” Mamata said. 

At the meeting off Hill Cart Road near Mallaguri in Siliguri, Mamata spent considerable time highlighting how the Modi regime has been using Pakistan to divert attention whenever faced with difficult questions. 

“Whenever anybody speaks on issues like unemployment, food, industry or citizenship, they are told to go to Pakistan. Despite being the Prime Minister of India, he seems to have forgotten his own country and goes on his rant on Pakistan," she said.

"Why should we think about Pakistan? We want to think about Hindustan and the problems here," she said.

Sources in Trinamul said that Mamata highlighted the issue at her public meeting with the intention of "exposing" how the Modi regime has woven Pakistan into its strategy during elections or difficult times facing the economy.

Many analysts had linked the BJP's stellar show in the last Lok Sabha polls to its ability to create an anti-Pakistan narrative over the purported air strike in Balakot after an attack in Pulwama. Pakistan had hogged the headlines ahead of last October's Assembly polls of Haryana when Modi had threatened to stop flow of water to rivers in Pakistan.

Mamata also took a dig at the BJP-run state governments, accusing them of throttling democracy.

"You (BJP leaders) are freely coming to Calcutta and visiting other places (in Bengal), holding rallies and criticising me. But then, why are you denying us (Trinamul) entry in Uttar Pradesh and Guwahati," she said.

She was referring to the visits of her party MPs of Guwahati (earlier during NRC) and recently to Lucknow where the state police of Assam and UP did not let them move out of the airport.

"In UP, everybody is being tortured, right from infants to senior citizens. Some youths from our state were working there. They had not been to any programme (agitation) but even then, they were arrested and have been branded as terrorists," added Mamata.

The BJP government has also launched attacked on students and have thrashed them at varsities, hostels have closed down and academic activities have been affected, she said.