West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has hit out at former Trinamool Congress MLAs and MPs who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the West Bengal Assembly election.
During a public address in Purba Medinipur, Mamata called them traitors and also called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “TMC thief”. “Ask the traitors how much money they have taken. You say Trinamool is a thief, Narendra Modi? You are the chief of robbers…. The traitor’s father is also a thief,” Mamata said, possibly referring to Suvendu Adhikari and his father Sisir Adhikari.
She continued, “I used to love and respect them and today, they are traitors. Remember they can be no greater traitors than this. People of Medinipur must free themselves from these people,” she said.
However, Sisir Adhikari, an ex-Congress and now former TMC leader, did not take Mamata’s traitors' jibe too kindly. Sisir followed his son’s footsteps and joined the BJP as he shared the dais with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during a rally today in Medinipur. Sisir said that people calling other traitors are traitors themselves.
Sisir has been with the TMC for 23 years and was a minister in former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government for six years. The father-son duo have a strong influence in Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia. With the duo now in BJP, these seats are likely to go to BJP in the West Bengal elections.
Meanwhile, during their rallies in West Bengal, Modi and Shah continue to attack the TMC government over alleged corruption and religious claims that TMC does not allow people to hold Durga pujas. Both have continuously alleged that the TMC has been betraying people for over a decade and that the BJP will bring change to West Bengal.
