On day two of Mamata Banerjee’s dharna on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) issue, the tone may be repetitive as she echoes her concerns over the voter revision exercise, where around 60 lakh voters are under adjudication and 63 lakh voters face deletion of their names ahead of announcement of the Assembly election dates.
However, the intent behind her body language is clear: that she is the fierce leader of righteousness and stands up for people whose fate as legitimate voters hangs in the balance.
She stands her ground in terms of political messaging and for the masses, which are her vote bank, which will be impacted by the voters under adjudication. The West Bengal CM is also attempting to portray her government as people-centric ahead of the Assembly elections.
“Since tomorrow is International Women’s Day, on this occasion we will change the date from April 1st for implementation of Yuva Saathi scheme and money will go into their accounts today itself. Those in the 21-40 age group bracket, 90 lakh to 1 crore people have signed up for this scheme and are not part of any other scheme apart from scholarships,” she said from the site of the SIR dharna.
The increase in the amount of the other welfare scheme for women of rural households, Lakshmir Bhandar, has already been implemented since February.
CM Banerjee went on to speak about tie-ups with industrialists to bring in jobs for the youth, two 1,600 MW mega power plants in Salboni—for which 800 acres land have already been allocated with another 800 to be given.
She also spoke about Bengal being number one in the IT sector.
“We are number one in the IT industry and new 200 companies coming into West Bengal—those who demean Bengal should know this. Bengal is number one in small and medium scale industries in India, we are number one in the skill industry,” Mamata said while also talking about other industries trying to portray Kolkata as an industry-friendly state.
Mamata lashed out at the BJP, calling them babus without taking names while mentioning a social media message by an unknown person.
“I don’t have a name for those who torture others, I call them nameless or anonymous, they have definitely been influenced by someone. They will divide Bengal and Bihar and make them union territories. Touch Bengal and see. They want to divide Bengal. They divided Bihar once into Bihar and Jharkhand. They now also want to divide Bihar. I say this clearly, wherever there is a double engine government, they will loot the region, this is their only work. They tell lies while looting,” she added.
The CM also went on to speak about the increase in price of gas by Rs 60 and the prices of cylinders and questioned the move to book gas cylinders three weeks in advance.
“If there is no gas in your house, will you eat their head or my head 21 days in advance? How will people eat? Did they not think about this?” questioned CM Banerjee while referring to the BJP-leaning supporters as nameless comrades and asked whether the saffron party had been sleeping all this while, and in the process, sold the country. She also hit out at the BJP over the increase in prices of commodities.
“The plan is to cut votes to divide Bengal. If people are unable to protest, the plan is to stop them. Remember, the more you try to stop them, the more backlash you will face. Even if everyone is scared of you, we are not those to put our tail in between our legs and run away. We were, are and will be there and we will remove your mask,” she declared.
Dharamtala, where Banerjee is sitting on a protest is the same site from which the West Bengal CM's fight against the Tata Nano car plant on land took place, that was acquired forcefully in Singur from farmers, which set the tone for her 26-day hunger strike in 2006, leading to the exit of the small car factory from the state in 2007 and the subsequent exit of the erstwhile Left Front government from West Bengal.
It was then Mamata’s turn to rule the roost and with the current SIR dharna, it is a reminder for her of her efforts to stay consistent in her messaging—that she is a leader who would not bow down from her protest against SIR and the BJP-led Centre’s alleged bulldozing tactics to bad-mouth her state.
