BJP hits back at Mamata Banerjee: ‘Cow survey to prevent cattle smuggling’

His remarks came a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in an apparent reference to the BJP and the RSS, said that she has come across “reports that activists from a certain political party and their sister organisation” were going to every household and “inquiring about the number of cows” and asked “who are they to ask these questions.”

Mamata said that she would not tolerate attempts to spread communal hatred in the name of cow protection and added that consuming beef was a personal choice and cannot be dictated by any political party.

Ghosh claimed that the BJP did not have any problem over consumption of any kind of meat by anyone. “It is one’s free will to eat beef or pork,” he added.

On Mamata’s statement that she “condemned the way Dalits were attacked in Gujarat”, Ghosh hit back asking if she was concerned “then why did she keep quiet when there were recent Dalit deaths in Nadia district of her own state? Why does she maintain this double standard?”.

He said in her Martyrs’ Day rally speech, Mamata had targeted only the BJP, which showed she was afraid of the party. “We are happy to be such a strong Opposition,” he added.

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To a query on defection of elected BJP members to the ruling TMC, Ghosh said: “It is the greed for power and the fear of resistance that her team, led by party vice-president Mukul Roy, is out to break all other Opposition parties and coerce or entice others to join them. Why else will she bother after getting a mandate of 211 seats out of 294?”

Senior party leader Jayprakash Majumder, who was also present at the press conference, countered Mamata’s claims that 80,000 industrialists had left the country in last two years. “Why would an industrialist leave the country out of fear of the CBI, the ED or the Income Tax department, if he has done nothing wrong? People like Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi have fled the country. Is Mamata batting for people like them?,” he asked.

He said that Mamata had claimed that her party would raise funds from its members and would not ask for money from any outsider. “Then whose money used to fund the party coffers so far? What happened to her painting skills, which she claimed fetched millions with only three strokes? Her party councillors are still penalising people monetarily to the extent that they are committing suicide and she terms it as ‘mistakes of a few people’,” Majumder alleged.

He also referred to the speech of Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Masjid, Syed Md Nurur Rahman Barkati, and said, “The cleric said that he knew how to make leaders and that political leaders had come to him and held his feet when they needed favours. How could Mamata let him speak such things? Why didn’t she tell him to leave the stage? It is an insult to the leaders of Bengal. We want to know who are the leaders who have done such a fallen act?” Majumder asked.