April 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted violence and vitiation in the Bengal Assembly elections on a day a CPM worker was killed in a bomb attack in Murshidabad by alleged Trinamul supporters.
The charge of election violence against Trinamul is not new - Bengal's ruling party has repeatedly faced the charge from rivals since 2011 - but Modi today said the attacks on rivals showed that "Didi has accepted defeat".
By the time Modi spoke at Howrah's Gulmohar Maidan, a little after 6pm, polling for the third phase had officially ended and the Election Commission had received 2,777 complaints, the highest in recent memory.
" Aaj ek aur chunav ka daur samapt hua. Hindustan bhar mein jab chunav samapt hote hain to khabar aati hai ki chunav shantipurna rahe. Yahaan se khabar aati hai, kitno ko mara gaya, peeta gaya, kitne booth loot liye gaye. Yeh sab kya hai (Another phase of polling ended today. In the rest of the country when elections end, we get news of peaceful polling. From here, we get to hear how many people were killed, beaten up, how many booths were looted. What is all this)?" he asked the 15,000-strong crowd of BJP supporters.
The Prime Minister then explained.
" Yeh is baat ka saboot hai ki Didi ne parajay sweekar kar li hai. Jab parajay deewar par dikhai de, to marta kya na karta (This proves Didi has accepted defeat. When the writing is on the wall, what wouldn't a desperate person do)," said Modi, drawing loud cheers.
In the 50 minutes that he spoke in Howrah, the bulk of Modi's speech was on the criticism of the Trinamul regime and how Mamata had broken promises. "The people of Bengal have realised what you are. They are so angry that they will teach a lesson to those who have ruined Bengal," he said.
During his previous visit to Bengal last Sunday, Modi had accused Mamata of "misusing" government machinery, while drawing attention to the chief secretary's response to a showcause notice the Election Commission had sent the Trinamul chief.
Today, he said that from the time Mamata became the chief minister, Bengal has been in a phase of " amawas (night of no moon)". "Woh aai, toh amavas ki kaali raat aai. Paanch saal aapne amavas ki raat ko jhela hai (She came and brought the dark night with her. For five years you have tolerated this darkness)," Modi said at another meeting in Basirhat, North 24-Parganas, where the BJP's only MLA, Samik Bhattacharya, is seeking re-election.
Modi repeated the Saradha-Narada-flyover corruption link that he had raised in earlier campaigns.
" Bridge toot gaya, kis baat ka saboot hai, doston? Bhrashtachar ka jeeta jaagta saboot hai ki nahin (The flyover collapsed, what does it prove, friends? Isn't it a living example of corruption)?" he said.
" In logon ko ek pal sarvajanik jeevan mein rehne ka haq nahin banta (These people have no right to remain in public life for another moment)," he said, so voters should punish those who played with the lives of people for exchange of money.
