Modi, for the second consecutive day, attacked the Trinamool Congress on the alleged insult of Murmu by the TMC government in West Bengal during her visit to the state.
Kolkata: The spat between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over President Droupadi Murmu’s visit to West Bengal escalated, with the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday citing an old picture to turn the tables on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to accuse him of insulting the first citizen of the nation.
Modi, for the second consecutive day, attacked the Trinamool Congress on the alleged insult of Murmu by the TMC government in West Bengal during her visit to the state on Saturday. He called the TMC ‘arrogant’ and accused Mamata Banerjee’s party and the government of insulting a woman tribal leader holding the office of the president. Mamata, however, displayed a March 31, 2024, picture to allege that Modi, himself, had insulted Murmu by remaining seated even when the president had stood up to confer the Bharat Ratna on L K Advani at the residence of the former deputy prime minister and the veteran BJP leader.
“The picture shows that the prime minister is seated while the president is standing. We never do that. It is the BJP which has the tradition of insulting the president, not us,” she said, displaying the picture from the podium at the site of her sit-in protest in Kolkata against the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls in West Bengal.
Murmu on Saturday expressed displeasure over the shifting of the venue of a tribal community event attended by her in West Bengal. She called Mamata her “younger sister” but expressed her displeasure over the absence of the chief minister or any other minister of the state during her visit to the International Santhal Conference held at Gosaipur near the airport in Bagdogra in North Bengal. The event was originally scheduled to be held at Bidhannagar in Darjeeling. She went on to suggest that the state government possibly had little interest in the welfare of tribal communities, and that was why it sought to stop people from coming to the event by shifting the venue.
Modi took to X on Saturday, highlighted the tribal identity of Murmu and criticised the TMC, terming the insult of the president “shameful and unprecedented”. The prime minister used an event on the occasion of International Women’s Day on Sunday to speak on the issue once again. “The Nari Shakti of the country will never forgive the TMC for insulting the president, who is also a tribal woman leader.
The TMC government’s actions not only resulted in the mismanagement of the tribal community event but also constituted an affront to the president, the Constitution and the noble tradition of democracy in the country, Modi said on Sunday.
With the assembly elections in West Bengal just a few weeks away, the BJP deployed its tribal leaders in the state and beyond to slam the TMC for the insult of the president and for the alleged boycott by the ruling party in the state of the event of the Santhals.
The TMC also deployed its ministers, legislators and parliamentarians for the counter-offensive against the BJP, and for highlighting the initiatives by the state government for the welfare of the tribal communities.
