Slap and unthinkable slogan- We will catch and jail Saradha culprits, says Shah and targets Mamata’s armour as ranks go ‘gali, gali mein shor hai…’ | ||
| DEVADEEP PUROHIT | ||
Calcutta, Sept. 7: BJP president Amit Shah today said “we will catch the Saradha culprits and jail them”, making an audacious foray into Bengal by targeting Mamata Banerjee’s once-invincible armour of honesty on a day an unthinkable slogan ricocheted off the walls of central Calcutta. “We are not afraid of anything because none of our leaders had anything to do with the Saradha scam,” Shah told a byelection rally at Bowbazar. Such a boast was once Mamata’s monopoly in Bengal but post-Saradha, a similar claim from Trinamul is unlikely to carry the ring of conviction. Then, Shah made the statement that must rankle Trinamul. “Saradha ho ya kuch bhi ho, hum pakarke jail mein daalne ka kaam karenge (Be it Saradha or anything else, we will catch the culprits and put them behind the bars),” Shah told his maiden public rally in Bengal after becoming the BJP president. The crowd lapped it up, seemingly pumped up by an unvarnished slogan that had become India’s equivalent of the “emperor has no clothes” in the late 1980s. “Gali, gali mein shor hai, Mamata Banerjee chor hai (The chorus on the streets is that Mamata Banerjee is a thief),” shouted many BJP supporters as they made their way to the venue of the rally held in support of Ritesh Tiwari, the party candidate for the Chowringhee Assembly bypoll on September 13. Such a sweeping slogan need not reflect the truth but Rajiv Gandhi had become its most prominent victim, paying a heavy price in the 1989 Lok Sabha polls against the backdrop of the Bofors scandal. The slogan had gained wider currency after a child chanted it during a live radio broadcast. Rajiv Gandhi — Mamata still considers him her mentor — had also started out as “Mr Clean” but could not brush off the stigma then. A fringe force in Bengal for years, the BJP would not have dared to issue the jail threat or raise such a slogan but for the dramatic changes that have taken place in the country and the state in the past few years. The Bengal chief minister’s personal integrity has never been questioned till recently. Shah’s audacity also reflects the vulnerability of Mamata after damaging disclosures on the Saradha scandal, compounded by the ignominy heaped by Trinamul MP Kunal Ghosh who has sought the interrogation of the chief minister by the CBI. When Shah, the biochemist who played the role of an alchemist and scripted the BJP’s success story in Uttar Pradesh, rose to speak this afternoon, it was evident that he was aware of the mood of the audience and he used it to his advantage. “Didi, you had hit the streets and were on fast for days to protest when 2,000-odd farmers lost their land in Singur…. Over 17 lakh people lost their deposits in the Saradha scam. Why aren’t you fasting? Why aren’t you protesting?” asked Shah. “Because your aides were involved in the scam,” he added, drawing a thunderous round of applause. From holding Mamata responsible for infiltration from beyond the borders to accusing her of indulging in the “politics of appeasement”, Shah listed several charges. On the Lok Sabha campaign trail, Narendra Modi had promised the “sternest action” against those behind the Saradha scandal if his party came to power. During his 20-minute address today, Shah picked up from where Modi’s left off in spite of reservations among a section of local BJP leaders that did not want him to focus on the Saradha scam. “If the central leaders speak too much about the Saradha scam, the Trinamul leaders will get a chance to claim that the CBI is acting at the behest of the BJP,” a local leader had said in private earlier in the day. Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee proved the hypothesis right this evening, claiming “political pressure on the CBI”. ( ) Shah, sources said, was not convinced with the local logic and told the state party leadership to build a political campaign against the Trinamul on the Saradha scam. Shah could be hoping to neutralise the “political interference” charge with the fact that the CBI probe was ordered by the Supreme Court — not the executive — and that judges have been keeping a close watch on some cases being probed by the central agency. Although Shah referred to the various achievements of the Modi government in its first 100 days to prod voters to vote for Tiwari, his theme was woven around the default scandal. “Things are changing for the better in the country under the leadership of the Prime Minister. Do you think Bengal can change? Do you think Bengal can change under the leadership of Didi?” he asked. “You had voted for Didi to get rid of scams. But that did not happen. There have been so many scams and I don’t want to talk about all of them. But the Saradha scam has to be mentioned,” said Shah, who launched the party’s campaign to bring about “another change” in Bengal — first in the 2015 municipal elections and then the 2016 Assembly polls. A BJP leader said Shah’s attack on Mamata had made remote the chances of an understanding between the two parties in the Rajya Sabha. “Often, people say that TMC and the BJP will have some understanding on important bills.… After the national president’s speech, such an arrangement is unlikely.” http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140908/jsp/frontpage/story_18812325.jsp#.VA4MmGRdVB8 |
↧
'Gali, gali mein shor hai...Mamata Banerjee chor hai' -- Saradha will be Didi's nemesis
↧