Why did PM Narendra Modi stay silent for 15 days, asks TMC

KOLKATA/KESHPUR: TMC on Sunday accused PM Modi of "zipping up" for a fortnight on Sandeshkhali because he was aware the charges were lies.

"The PM has stopped talking about the Modi 420 Guarantee. In the last fortnight, he also zipped his mouth on Sandeshkhali after the video surfaced," said Derek O Brien, Trinamool's leader in Rajya Sabha, adding, "Modi and his minions insult Bengal, degrade the dignity of women, choke the state of funds, and are migratory birds who only visit at election time."

Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, while addressing a rally in West Midnapore's Keshpur, said BJP was a "party of liars", who had been exposed by the Sandeshkhali incident. "They are all liars, from head to toe, completely deceitful. Haven't you seen what they did in Sandeshkhali, how they humiliated women? BJP's mandal president Gangadhar Koyal claims that for 2,000 rupees, women were made to falsely make rape allegations, just to trap Trinamool," he said.

Trinamool said it had acted against the accused in Sandeshkhali, going beyond party affiliation. "TMC has expelled the accused [Sk Shahjahan and others] for six years. But BJP's Sandeshkhali video exposed BJP's conspiracy to malign Bengal, concocted by Bengal LoP Suvendu Adhikari. They bribed and forced women to sign a blank paper and file false rape charges. It is BJP that shelters molesters like Brij Bhushan Singh and Prajwal Revanna," the party said.

TMC: BJP insults Bengal's greats
A day after CM Mamata Banerjee's outburst against "a few monks, not everyone", whom she accused of working against Trinamool and for BJP, TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said his party believed "in the saffron religion of Swamiji [Vivekananda], not in the saffron of Yogi Adityanath."

Abhishek also went all out in his attempt to establish that BJP had denigrated Bengal's greats. "BJP has disrespected Bengal's intellectuals. Under Amit Shah's leadership, they broke a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar on the streets of Kolkata. They belittled Rammohan Roy and called Swami Vivekananda an ignorant leftist product," he said, adding, "Bengal has shown the way to the nation."

Trinamool also rebutted some claims made by PM Modi on Sunday. Expressing strong objection to the charge that "infiltrators were TMC's vote bank," the party said: "We do not believe in vote-bank politics. The Lakshmir Bhandar scheme benefits over 2 crore women. Kanyasree - which got a UN award - covers 85 lakh girls and Khadya Sathi covers 10 crore people of Bengal."

Trinamool also attacked Modi on CAA, claiming that hundreds of Bengali Hindus had committed suicide in the last six years because of citizenship-related harassment. The party said out of 40 lakh people whose citizenship was under threat, 28 lakh were Bengali Hindus, 10 lakh Bengali Muslims and only 2 lakh from states other than Bengal and Assam.

The party also said corruption charges against TMC were without evidence, alleging that BJP was the world's largest washing machine. "The party selectively targets opposition parties through ED and CBI. Ninety-five percent cases are against the opposition, with only a 0.4% conviction rate," it said.