Baruipur (West Bengal): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the Trinamool Congress will complain to the Election Commission if Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meditation in Kanyakumari is televised, claiming that it would be a violation of the election Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
Modi is scheduled to meditate at Rock Memorial, a monument built in tribute to Swami Vivekananda, in Kanyakumari following the culmination of the Lok Sabha polls campaign on May 30, according to BJP leaders.
"We will complain. He can meditate, but it cannot be aired on television," she said, claiming that this will amount to "violation of the MCC." "Does anyone have to get cameras for doing meditation?" she asked, claiming that it was a way of canvassing during the silence period between the end of campaign and the poll date.
According to BJP leaders, Modi will meditate from May 30 evening to June 1 evening at Dhyana Mandapam, the place where Vivekananda a spiritual icon admired by Modi is believed to have had a divine vision about 'Bharat Mata'. Speaking at an election meeting on the same ground where the PM held a rally on Tuesday in favour of Jadavpur constituency's BJP candidate, the Trinamool Congress chief claimed that Modi goes into meditation for 48 hours before the final phase of polling in every election.
The Prime Minister had undertaken a similar meditation exercise in a Kedarnath cave after the 2019 election campaign. "If they (BJP) return to power this time, there won't be any political party, elections, independence, religion, humanity or culture," she said. The TMC supremo sought to dismiss Modi's claim that the BJP will achieve the best results in Bengal this election, asserting, "This means they have lost; they will get rosogolla (zero) in Bengal."
She said the TMC will support the opposition INDIA alliance in forming a government in Delhi and urged the people not to vote for the CPI(M) or Congress in Bengal. "That will help the BJP," she said, in the campaign meeting at Baruipur before the seventh phase election to nine Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
