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Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accused him of using government machinery and institutions to intimidate the opposition, questioning the removal of Andhra Pradesh chief secretary by the Election Commission.
She wondered why PM Modi is not removing his own cabinet secretary or the Union home secretary, if he was so “fond of making last-minute changes”.
“Why is the Centre intervening in state matters? Why was Andhra Pradesh chief secretary removed?” Banerjee, who has accused the Election Commission (EC) of working at the behest of the BJP, asked, addressing an election rally.
“Why don’t you (Modi) remove your own cabinet secretary?” the CM said, claiming that she has worked with several prime ministers, but has never seen anyone as “vindictive” like Modi.
The EC on Friday removed Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary Anil Chandra Punetha from the post and appointed senior-most IAS officer L V Subrahmanyam in his place.
“You have raided the family of Kamal Nath, Karnataka chief minister has been raided, Andhra Pradesh chief minister has also been raided,” she said.
Banerjee accused the BJP-led Central government of using the income tax department and the CBI for raids and getting the institutions to do their bidding.
Reacting to the poll panel’s move of removing four IPS officers in West Bengal, including Kolkata and Bidhanagar police commissioners, the West Bengal chief minister Saturday wrote a letter, protesting its decision.
The letter said the removals were “unfortunate, highly arbitrary, motivated and biased” and taken at the behest of the BJP, and urged the poll panel to review its decision.
Retorting to PM’s claim that the TMC chief was scared of him, Banerjee said it was actually Modi who was afraid of her, and not the other way round.
“The more you try to intimidate me, the more will I roar,” she said, addressing two back-to-back rallies, a couple of hours after Modi’s speech at Cooch Behar.
“Didi is not a person to be afraid of anything or anybody,” the feisty TMC supremo, who almost single-handedly brought down the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal, ending its 34-year rule, asserted.
Without naming former political associate Mukul Roy, whom she addressed as a “traitor” for quitting her party to join the BJP, she accused Modi of sharing the dias at his public meeting in Cooch Behar with a person (Roy) accused in the Saradha and Narada cases.
“You (Modi) have said in Cooch Behar that you will seek answers for Saradha-Narada scams… It’s your leader (Roy) who is accused in these and not the Trinamool,” she said.
