We give free rice, let Modi give free gas: Didi on Women’s Day
“Kitchens are on fire. Cooking gas price is rising by Rs 25 every day; a cylinder now costs nearly Rs 900. The PM should rein in cooking gas prices first,” Banerjee said.
Kolkata: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee hit the streets of Kolkata on International Women’s Day, walking from College Street to Esplanade in the heart of the city and tugging at women voters’ heartstrings while urging them not to vote for a party that had made managing household budgets so difficult.
“How do you feel when you get food rations free but have to spend Rs 900 to cook that food?” she asked after leading a women’s rally. “We give free rice. Let him (PM Narendra Modi) give free gas,” she added, tearing into Modi for starting his regular Bengal visits just before the election to vilify the state and spread canards about it. “Kitchens are on fire. Cooking gas price is rising by Rs 25 every day; a cylinder now costs nearly Rs 900. The PM should rein in cooking gas prices first,” Banerjee said, accusing him of turning “Brigade into B-grade” on Sunday.
She then appealed to Bengal’s “mothers and sisters” to give a befitting reply to the “pack of lies” being spread by “Modi babu” and “Shah-da” (Union home minister Amit Shah) on the safety of women in Bengal. “Jotoi koro jumla, jabab debe Bangla (Bengal will give an answer to your falsehoods),” Banerjee said.
BJP seniors’ “lies” on women’s security in the state were “an insult” to Bengal’s women, the CM said, contrasting this with how women were the focus of the Bengal government and the Trinamool; family health cards in the Swasthya Sathi were issued in the name of a family’s female member and several other schemes like Kanyashree, targeted at women, were a success.
“Women here go out for work. They roam the streets, whether it is early morning or late night. How can they say women here are unsafe? I have never come across a prime minister saying so many lies,” the CM said, bringing out crime-against-women records of Gujarat’s Ahmedabad and Uttar Pradesh (both governed by the BJP). “Ahmedabad in Gujarat and UP top the list of crime against women,” she added.
Banerjee then sought to turn the PM’s anti-Trinamool “syndicate, tolabaazi” slogans on their head, asking Modi: “What were you doing during the pandemic when we were on the streets? You did not step out of home but addressed people from virtual platforms. And now, when people are going for vaccination, you emboss your picture on the vaccination certificate.”
