Farmers Movement Archive

India moving towards a presidential form of govt, says Bengal CM Mamata at protest meet

Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said that the country is moving towards a presidential form of government. “The country is moving towards presidential form of government – one nation, one leader, one political party. Super-autocracy is going on in the country. There is no democracy in India. Media, NGOs, political parties, government officers are not being allowed to speak. Agency-raj is going on,” she said on Saturday, tagging the BJP as the biggest pandemic the country is facing today. Banerjee was addressing a rally in the heart of Kolkata to protest against the alleged gang rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Uttar Pradesh. This is her first rally after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “I felt like rushing to Uttar Pradesh. Today my heart lies in that village. The Dalits and minorities are facing maximum atrocities. If I raise my voice, they (BJP) accuse me of minority appeasement. Today I am a Dalit because a Dalit girl has been murdered. Tomorrow I will be a member of the scheduled tribe community if some tribal person is tortured,” the TMC supremo said, with most of her 30-minute speech being delivered in Hindi. The TMC is seeing an opportunity to reach out to voters from backward classes, who supported the BJP in several of the 18 Lok Sabha seats the latter won in 2019. There are about 10 million people from the Namasudra community (Dalits) in Bengal. Before the 2019 polls, the All India Matua Mahasangha, a Dalit body, had played host to a rally addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Attacking the BJP over the Hathras incident, Banerjee said that she had tried to contact the victim’s family over the phone but was unable to speak as their phones were seized. The chief minister hinted that she may visit Hathras any day. “BJP may have directed the UP police not to allow anyone to enter the village. But for how long will it continue – Today, tomorrow and day after? A time will come when I will visit the village and you won’t get to know about it. I will surely meet the victim’s family,” she said. She ordered party leaders to continue protest rallies at block level every day till October 16 before the countdown for Durga Puja starts. The TMC chief used the platform to lead an all-out attack against the BJP-led Union government starting from farm bills, to disinvestment plans and GST, unemployment among others. “Over the past few days a political drama is going on in Mumbai. We want justice to be delivered. But the fact remains that whenever election approaches political vendetta comes into play,” she said.

Hindustan Times

03-10-2020

India