PTI
Kolkata
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal, comparing the situation in the state to Bihar’s past “lawlessness” and calling it a “maha jungle raj”.
He also accused the Trinamool Congress of “corruption and nepotism” that prevented the state’s development.
With the assembly polls in West Bengal due in less than six months, Modi, while virtually addressing a massive gathering at Taherpur in Nadia district from Kolkata, referred to the NDA’s landslide victory in the recent Bihar assembly elections, stating that the results in the neighbouring state will positively impact the party’s fortunes in the state.
“The election results in Bihar have opened up the doors for BJP’s victory in West Bengal because, like I have said before, the Ganga flows into West Bengal through Bihar,” the PM said.
Modi urged the people to provide a chance to the BJP in the 2026 assembly polls to form a “double engine government” in the state, a term used by BJP leaders to refer to the party being in power at the Centre as well as in a state.
Earlier in the day, dense fog at Taherpur prevented the Prime Minister’s helicopter from landing at the makeshift helipad and forced him to return to the Kolkata airport, from where he addressed the crowd-in-waiting over a virtual audio mode.
“Let the TMC oppose me and the BJP as much as it wants, but I fail to understand why the ruling party is holding people to ransom, making them suffer and stopping West Bengal’s progress,” Modi said at the Parivartan Sankalpa Sabha, the fourth such meeting in the state this year.
The PM also claimed, “We will end TMC’s ‘maha jungle raj’ in West Bengal where corruption, nepotism and appeasement politics are ruling the roost.”
Modi alleged that the culture of “cut money and commission” has stalled development in the state despite there being “no dearth of goodwill, planning and money” in store for the region, adding that welfare schemes worth thousands of crores are held up because of an “adverse state government”.
“I want to go all out to usher development in West Bengal. Give the BJP a chance and bring a double-engine government here and witness how quickly we usher in development,” Modi said, sounding his party’s poll bugle for next year’s state elections.
