Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], April 8 (ANI): West Bengal minister Shashi Panja hit back at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jitendra Tiwari for allegedly threatening to file a defamation case against the Trinamool Congress (TMC), which has accused him of ‘meeting a National Investigative Agency (NIA) officer and furnishing him with a list of names to take action.’
“Who is stopping Jitendra Tiwari from filing a defamation case?” Panja said, speaking to reporters in Howrah on Sunday.
The TMC claimed that on March 26, BJP leader Jitendra Tiwari visited an NIA SP-level officer’s residence and handed him a list, based on which the NIA is planning their shoddy investigation, spreading terror, and arresting TMC booth-level workers.
Tiwari however refuted the charges and said that he would quit politics if the TMC could prove its allegations. He also demanded an apology from the TMC while threatening to file a defamation suit.
Slamming the BJP for defaming West Bengal, TMC leader Shashi Panja said, “Right now, the fight in this election should be for votes. But West Bengal is being continuously defamed by the BJP. The BJP is defaming all the people of the opposition by calling them corrupt and calling itself a saint.”
Panja sarcastically said that the “BJP’s washing machine is running in the entire country.”
“The CBI, ED, and Income Tax are taking daily action against opposition leaders only in opposition-ruled states across the country, except BJP leaders. Two chief ministers of the opposition were arrested. For the first time after independence, we saw that a Chief Minister (Arvind Kejriwal) was arrested after the implementation of the Election Code of Conduct,” she said.
Panja further said that arresting the opposition leaders by defaming them is the conspiracy of the BJP.
In reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in an election rally in West Bengal, the TMC Minister took a dig, saying, “This is just a trailer of the work of the Central Government in the last 10 years, from 2014 to 2024; the picture is yet to come.”
Panja sarcastically said that we are scared just by watching the trailer of 10 years. “What would the cinema be like…,” she said.
Accusing the Centre of depriving Bengal of its rights, Panja said, “PM Modi only talks big. Bengal has been deprived of money for the poor in various central schemes, including 100 days work.”
Panja said “The PM talks about taking 25 crore people out of the poverty line in the country, so why are 80 crore people being given free rations? He also raised questions on the picture of the PM in ration packets.”
She added that the state also has a stake in this, then why is the PM’s photo put up?
“There is nothing left in the country by calling it a republic. There is no freedom for the media either. The BJP has crushed democracy,” the Trinamool leader said.
Speaking on the NDA’s target of winning at least 400 seats, Panja said, “The BJP does not have confidence in themselves, hence they are trying to convince themselves by saying that it will cross 400.”
“CBI and ED are being sent to the houses of opposition leaders every day,” the Minister added. (ANI)
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