Mamata Banerjee: ‘Militant organisation’ BJP uses cash to win polls

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, June 21 called the Bharatiya Janata Party a "militant organisation," engaged in dividing people along religious lines. Banerjee also alleged that the BJP is manipulating EVMs to increase its vote share in the state and urged her party workers to prepare for the next Lok Sabha poll as the entire country is looking forward to it.

"We are not a militant organisation like the BJP. They are arrogant and intolerant. They are religiously biased. They don't like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs—they are even differentiating between the upper caste and the lower caste Hindus," she said at the extended core committee meeting of TMC.

Lashing out at the BJP, she said, "They are threatening to carry out encounters. Just because they are in power in Delhi, they are talking about hurling bombs. I dare them to come and touch us. We will show them their place." West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh had said on Tuesday that the party would not tolerate if its workers were attacked by the Trinamool Congress and threatened to retaliate.

Banerjee alleged that the saffron party is manipulating EVMs to increase its vote share in the state. "The work for the revision of electoral rolls has begun. Ensure that the procedures are followed. It is the BJP's habit to tamper EVMs. Our party workers must be alert and monitor them," she said.

Referring to the May assembly bypoll at Maheshtala, she said 30% of the EVMs used then did not work properly. "This government (at the Centre) manipulates EVM machine. Every machine will have to be monitored," she said. The TMC had registered a massive victory in Maheshtala by securing 1,04,818 votes, while the BJP's vote share had witnessed a massive rise to 42,053 votes.

Banerjee asked her party cadre and workers to increase mass contact ahead of the Lok Sabha poll due next year. "You (TMC cadre and workers) should remember that people of this country are looking up to us. They want to know what are we doing," she said.

Banerjee also accused the BJP of doling out cash to win elections and said such practices by the Centre's ruling party will soon be the reason for its downfall.

"We are not like the BJP that snatches away people's money in the name of demonetisation and then distributes that cash among the voters to win the elections unethically. They are getting snubbed by people in the recent elections for such practices. Soon, more people will reject them."

With agency inputs.