Mamata goes ballistic on Modi: Calls him bhonda, gadha, Haridas Pal

A sherni (lioness) glued to her chair, is how Narendra Modi said of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday. Her retort: Is he a bhonda (fool) or gadha (donkey)?

Taking the election season insult-hurling to new depths, the BJP’s prime ministerial nominee and the Trinamool Congress chief engaged in a fresh war of words as campaigning continued for the final phase of elections to be held on 12 May.

According to a report in The Indian Express , Modi, speaking at election meetings in Nadia, Kankurgachi and Barasat in the North 24 Parganas region, took on Banerjee’s track record on development. She came to power on slogan of change, he said. “But nothing has changed in Bengal, except herself”.

He continued to hint that the state government was protecting perpetrators of the Saradha chit fund scam, saying, “Didi ko gussa kyon aata hai? (Why does didi get so angry?)”

According to the report, he said the mere “mention of Saradha gives Mamataji an electric shock… Why does she react like that. Didi, why don’t you say point blank, you have no connection with Saradha?"

The chief minister of West Bengal responded equally, saying it was only because of their courtesy that Modi had been allowed to arrive in the state. “…Otherwise we would not have allowed him to get down from the aircraft,” she reportedly said.

She called Modi a “Haridas Pal (useless person) who does not have an MLA here”. The BJP got a mere 4 percent vote share in the state in the 2009 elections, but is hoping to reverse that this year.

The war of  words between the two chief ministers is a far cry from the warm overtures he made towards her in Kolkata in February this year, which she had promptly snubbed. In recent weeks, the Trinamool Congress leaders have called Modi the “Butcher of Gujarat”, in response to Modi’s allegations that a Mamata painting had been sold for Rs 1.8 crore to raise funds for the party.

There are 17 seats in WB that go to polls on the last day of voting, including in the 24 North Parganas region.

An analysis in The Indian Express  says the face-off between them actually plays into the TMC Vs Left battle which is the bigger fight in the state, each of these two parties accusing Modi of “playing the other’s game”. While Mamata believes the Left has invited the BJP to attack the TMC, the Left says the intention is to divide the anti-incumbency votes and hurt the Left.

Modi, meanwhile, also claimed that native Bengalis had to wait for jobs while Bangladeshi  infiltrators were getting them on a platter. He asked Banerjee to dare the  Supreme Court which has observed that the infiltration is aggression against India.

“What made you turn against Bengal? You have grown blind in your lust for power,” he added.

Modi also responded to her previous taunt that had she been in power at the Centre, she would have tied Modi “with ropes and made him walk on the road” for the Gujarat violence.

“Just tell me which jail I have to go. I will go there myself. I am here. My first job in jail will be to learn the Bengali language,” he had said in a rally earlier in the day," Modi reportedly said.