'BJP is the Pandemic, It Ended India': Mamata Banerjee Slams Centre

In the backdrop of the Hathras gang rape case, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lashed out at the BJP-led central government, terming it as a "dictatorship". Speaking at a protest march against the Hathras gang rape case, the CM called BJP a pandemic that has 'Ended India'.

Kolkata:West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led government at the Centre for running a "dictatorship" in the country and said the saffron party is a "pandemic" which is torturing Dalits the most.

Banerjee, who held a protest march against the Hathras gang rape case, said she will stand by the Dalit community till the end as her caste is "humanity" and she does not believe in differentiation on the grounds of caste and religion. “BJP sabse bada pandemic hai...Yeh party desh ko khatam kar diya (BJP is the biggest pandemic in the country, they have ended our country)," she said.

The march, the first by the fiesty TMC supremo since March when the nationwide lockdown was declared to break the coronavirus infection chain, covered the 2-km distance between Birla Planetarium to Gandhi statue on Mayo Road here. Sharpening her attack, Banerjee said, "COVID-19 is not a big pandemic. BJP is the biggest pandemic. It is the biggest pandemic of atrocities against Dalit and backward communities." "We should stand up against these atrocities...The kind of atrocities that are taking place are completely unacceptable," she said addressing the rally.

She said the way Adityanath's BJP government in UP had handled the incident was highly condemnable. "I feel like meeting the family members at Hathras. Yesterday, I sent a team of TMC leaders to stand beside the grieving family members. But unfortunately, they were not only stopped from meeting the victim’s family members but also they were manhandled by the UP police," the TMC supremo said, adding that the party's MP was also manhandled.

The delegation had comprised MPs Derek O’Brien, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Pratima Mondal and former MP Mamata Thakur. All of them were stopped nearly 1.5 km from the victim’s house in Hathras.