Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Saturday, reacted to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's challenge that she would contest from the prime minister's constituency Varanasi in 2024 Lok Sabha polls saying the people of Varanasi won't call her an outsider.
He said the chief minister's challenge is proof that she has accepted defeat in her state and started searching for a place outside Bengal.
"Didi is now looking for a place for herself outside Bengal. The people of Varanasi and Uttar Pradesh are as large-hearted as the people of Bengal. They won't call her an outsider," Modi said during a campaign rally in South 24 Parganas' Sonarpur.
He claimed that Banerjee may have been attracted to Varanasi because of the waterways that the BJP government developed and added that she can try her luck in that constituency after tasting defeat in Bengal assembly polls. I want to tell you that my people in Uttar Pradesh won't call you an outside, a tourist or a tourist gang, he said.
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Slamming the chief minister for branding BJP leaders as "outsiders" (Bohirgato) and he said it is an insult to the inclusive ideology of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and principles of Indian Constitution. He asserted that Bengal's "Bhumiputra" (son of the soil) will take over as the chief minister after the BJP is voted to power on May 2, and added that no Indian is an "outsider" in the state.
"When the British tried to divide us, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose said 'India is one, and the hopes and aspirations of every Indian are the same'. Today, there is a lot of pain when instead of propagating the ideology of Netaji, TMC and Mamata Didi are talking about Bohirgato," he said.
Didi is talking about outsiders. We are all children of Mother India. No Indian is an outsider here. When BJP forms the government after May 2, a son of the soil will become the chief minister, he said.
—With PTI inputs
