PRIME Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced six guarantees for Bengal if the BJP wins the Assembly polls and sought the ouster of the “nirmam” (cruel) TMC Government, accusing it of “setting new parameters of development debacle and pulling the State back”. Addressing a rally at the port city of Haldia in Purba Medinipur, which also doubles up as one of the State’s industrial hotspots, Modi assured the people of rescuing the State from the existing “reign of fear” and creating an atmosphere of all-pervading “trust”. “Investments cannot be ushered in when an atmosphere of fear prevails.

 

It can only happen when there is trust, which the BJP will bring in Bengal once it forms Government here,” Modi said, focusing on the party’s industrial plank in the run-up to the polls. Canvassing for BJP candidates in the backyard of Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, Modi connoted the Mamata Banerjee administration as “Nirmam (cruel) sarkar”, an obvious play on words on the Chief Minister’s name as its antonym.

 

“While the entire country is walking on the path of progress, the TMC’s Nirmam Sarkar is pulling Bengal back in a sustained manner. To usher in a Viksit Bengal, it is essential to remove the TMC’s ‘Nirmam Sarkar’,” the Prime Minister said. In his bid to take the wind out of the sails of CM Mamata Banerjee, who alleged the BJP would impose restrictions on eating fish if it wins the polls, Modi alleged the TMC Government failed to match fish production with its high demand in the State. “Bengal has a high demand for fish.

 

Yet it imports fish from other States. In the last 15 years, the TMC Government has taken no worthwhile step to enhance supply and attain self-sufficiency in fish production,” he said. The Prime Minister promised the people of West Bengal that the BJP would make the State self-sufficient in fisheries and the seafood sector, while highlighting that the BJP Government at the Centre has set up a dedicated ministry for the welfare of the fisherfolk and allotted a record budget for them. Underlining “six Modi guarantees” for the people, the Prime Minister said the BJP, once in power in the State, will replace the TMC’s “reign of fear” with the BJP’s “trust”.