On Quit India Day, We Pledge to Make BJP Quit Delhi: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee – News18

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said tribals in ethnic strife-hit Manipur are facing a crisis and there is none to listen to their plight.

Banerjee, who is on a three-day administrative tour of Jhargram, blamed the BJP-led central government for failing to address the situation in the northeastern state and urged people across the globe to pray for them.

Paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi on the anniversary of the Quit India movement, the chief minister said the saffron party should quit the country.

”The tribals in Manipur are facing a crisis. There is none to listen to their plight. Dalits are tortured in India and the Centre is unmoved, unfazed. They have no right to be in power as they have tortured Dalits. People are being killed in encounters. They are planning to break the country into pieces through planned communal riots,” Banerjee said.

She was speaking at an administrative programme in Jhargram, mostly inhabited by tribals, to celebrate the ’International Day of World’s Indigenous Peoples’.

”We had told the British to quit India. Today, we want the BJP-led government at the Centre to quit Delhi. On Quit India day, we pledge to make the BJP quit India,” she said.

In an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s using Mahatma Gandhi’s ’Quit India’ slogan and attacking the ’INDIA’ alliance, Banerjee said, ”They are saying ’Quit India’. We don’t need to quit. We belong to this country. I belong to this country. It (Quit India) is a movement. They have forgotten (Mahatma) Gandhiji. The British were made to leave India by the freedom fighters. We wanted freedom,” she said.

The Trinamool Congress supremo criticised the PM saying he failed to fulfill the promises he had made before the elections.

Denouncing the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), Banerjee said, ”Suddenly they (the BJP) have started talking about the need to introduce UCC. Why should someone follow their set of rules while getting married? Nobody can force anything on us. We won’t accept the UCC,” she said.

Referring to Bengal Governor Dr CV Ananda Bose appointing a non-academic as the vice-chancellor of a university in the state, Banerjee said, ”The governor’s post is a constitutional one and there are constitutional limitations to it.

”Our Governor is appointing a person for the vice-chancellor’s chair who was an IPS officer in Kerala. That is not the rule. To appoint a VC, you have to send three names. If you have the guts, sign the Bill passed in the Assembly making the CM the chairperson and the chancellor,” Banerjee said.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)