Prime Minister Narendra Modi stirred the teacup in north Bengal and reaped a storm in Calcutta on Friday.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee sought to revise the fabled “chaiwalah” narrative by calling Modi “Rafale-walah” after he virtually warned that she would not be spared and accused her of protecting the corrupt.
In the afternoon Modi had swept into Jalpaiguri by reminding the tea garden terrain of a version of his origins that has its own share of doubters. “Aap chai banate hain, main chaiwalah tha. (You make tea, I used to sell tea),” Modi had said, before attacking the Mamata government.
In Calcutta, Mamata, who appears to have bottled up her anger for the past 24 hours while she went about a business summit and Modi staged a manoeuvre on a high court circuit bench, exploded. “He was never a chaiwalah and does not know how to make tea,” she said.
Mamata told a news conference in Calcutta: “The PM engages in half-truths and lies. Before elections, he is a chaiwalah and after elections, he is Rafale-walah.”
She added: “He is a master of Rafale (scam), a master of demonetisation, a master of corruption, a master of arrogance. He doesn’t know India.”
Departing from her practice of the past few months, Mamata repeatedly referred to the Rafale scam — an issue Congress president Rahul Gandhi has been highlighting — suggesting she would use it to fight the BJP’s Saradha campaign against Trinamul. “I support the Congress stand on the Rafale issue,” Mamata told a questioner.
Mamata Banerjee in Calcutta. Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya
Sources said Mamata had been excited since morning when The Hindu report on the Rafale deal made headlines on TV channels. They added that she was beginning to believe that the issue could become a telling weapon against Modi during the election campaign. “He is scared. India is united now. Twenty-three political parties are working together,” Mamata said.
“Our one-point programme is ‘Modi hatao, desh bachao (Oust Modi, save the country)’. He has lost his sleep. He is having nightmares. He is very scared.”
She repeated her new coinage, visibly savouring it: “He claims to be a chaiwalah; he has become Rafale-walah.”
Since Thursday, Mamata had been smarting from the Centre’s unilateral decision to inaugurate the circuit bench of Calcutta High Court in Jalpaiguri. Modi did the honours on Friday during a trip to north Bengal despite the state government having officially complained about the way Bengal and the high court had been kept in the dark about the plan.
Mamata, a source close to her said, had been “holding her horses” for the past two days as she was busy with the Bengal Global Business Summit and did not want to divert attention from the event.
She, however, decided on Friday morning that the moment the summit ended, she would highlight the state’s stand on the circuit bench inauguration and take on Modi.
After wrapping up her assignments at the business event, she began following the developments in Delhi on the Rafale scam and tracking Modi’s speech in Jalpaiguri.
“Neither the state government nor the high court was invited (to the inauguration). The bride and the groom were absent but a band party was hired,” Mamata said, calling the inauguration “a poll-time gimmick”.
“But who will do the maintenance? Where will the manpower come from? How will the bench function?”
Half an hour earlier, Modi had held Mamata responsible for all the state’s problems.
Aap chai banate hain, main chaiwalah tha. (You make tea, I used to sell tea).
Narendra Modi
The PM engages in half-truths and lies. Before elections, he is a chaiwalah and after elections, he is Rafale-walah.
Mamata Banerjee
It was clear during the news conference that Mamata had noted the charges. She attempted a point-by-point rebuttal of Modi’s claims, from his extolment of the Centre’s help to the tea gardens and their workers to his allegation of the state’s failure to develop north Bengal.
Asked how she planned to combat the Centre’s “attack on the country’s federal structure”, Mamata merely said she would leave for Delhi early next week. Sources said that several meetings with other Opposition leaders had been lined up.
Mamata chided Modi for slighting the Opposition alliance as a “mahamilavat (grand adulteration)”.
“Is this the way a PM speaks? If someone is corrupt but joins the BJP, he or she becomes ‘honest’. They force leaders of other parties to join the BJP by threatening to use government agencies against them…. Does he think that everyone else in the country is a thief and he is the only saint?” she said.
Mamata emerged from the 35-minute news conference wearing a broad grin. She left to inaugurate the ramp connecting the Parama and AJC Bose Road flyovers that promises to decongest roads in parts of eastern and central Calcutta.
