TMC tears into Modi’s ‘own-goals’, says BJP acts as ‘washing machine’ | Kolkata News – Times of India

Kolkata: Trinamool on Friday slammed PM Narendra Modi‘s address in Kolkata, terming his claims on infiltration and corruption as nothing but “self-goals”. Checking the borders was not the state’s job, TMC claimed in a 40-minute address to the media moments after Modi’s speech ended at Dum Dum.Senior Bengal minister Sashi Panja and TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh also claimed that the PM’s claims on corruption were all fake as “BJP acts as a washing machine that gives shelter to the corrupt and dares not act against the very BJP netas whose arrest the central ruling party had wanted when these same people were in opposition”.Sharing the Narada sting video of BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, Ghosh said: “Narendra Modi threw stones sitting in a glass house. He again showed his no-confidence in home minister Amit Shah when he claimed there was infiltration in Bengal. Who is responsible for 20 infiltrators entering through Tripura?”On the corruption “self-goal”, Ghosh said: “The very ones you called corrupt now sit beside you. From Ajit Pawar to Hemanta Biswa Sharma to Suvendu Adhikari, everyone is now in BJP.” “Those accused of corruption are the ones sitting on stage,” he added, daring the PM to “first remove the corrupt individuals”.Panja dismissed Modi’s claim that “a government employee loses his job after being in jail for 50 hours”. She said: “The example given by the PM is incorrect. In such situations, an employee does not lose his job; they are suspended.”Panja claimed BJP had targeted 25 opposition netas since coming to office, 23 of whom joined BJP. “Out of 240 MPs, 94 have serious charges. What has BJP done against them? You have lodged 5,982 cases through ED but convicted just eight. There is no proof, but the stigma of notoriety stays,” she said.TMC also alleged that Modi’s love for Bengali was “limited to reading a few lines from the teleprompter”. “Modi sat close to Amit Malviya, the BJP functionary who declared that Bengali is not even a language. He also made statements about coming here when Durga Puja festivities have filled the air. It’s the same BJP that had kept saying that Bengal does not allow Durga Puja. Each day, BJP’s fake claims are getting exposed,” said Ghosh.The TMC spokesperson challenged Modi to declare that all workers would work only in their respective states. “Bengal has seen workers migrating to other places due to the specialized work that they do. But over 1.5 crore people from other states work here too. Can the PM guarantee that they will not come to Bengal?” he asked.Ghosh added that the more Modi and Shah visit the state, the more seats Trinamool will secure. “Write it down, and underline it, Mamata Banerjee will return to office a fourth time with a record number of MLAs,” he said.TMC also criticized Modi for not mentioning CM Mamata Banerjee’s name even once while inaugurating the Metro sectors even though she had “pioneered the Metro expansion in the city”. “The projects that were inaugurated were conceived by CM Banerjee during her tenure as railway minister. It would have been appropriate to mention Mamata’s name at least once,” said Ghosh.