Mamata Likely to Skip Event as Modi Launches Railway Projects in Bengal
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is unlikely to share the dais with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday during the inauguration of several projects of the Indian Railways in West Bengal.
The Indian Railways has already been told that Banerjee won’t be able to attend the events because of an administrative meeting. “She was invited but she is not attending the events where PM Modi will be present today,” a TMC MLA said.
Banerjee’s refusal to share the dais comes even as the CBI sent a notice to her nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s wife Rujira Narula and her sister in connection with a coal scam case.
On February 21, a team of CBI sleuths reached Abhishek Banerjee’s house in Kolkata but could not find his wife. They delivered the summon letter to one of the officials present. CBI officials later visited Rujira’s sister’s home and handed over another summon letter in the case.
The coal scam probe has been going on since November, 2020 but the fresh summon to Abhishek Banerjee’s wife came after the CBI conducted searches at 13 locations in four districts including Purulia, Bankura, Paschim Bardhaman and Kolkata on February 19.
Banerjee said on Sunday that the BJP will get a befitting response to the summons and raid during the elections. “If they think that they will scare us through agencies then they are mistaken. We aren’t scared of rats,” she had said.
It was learnt that before laying foundation stones of various projects, PM Modi will address a public meeting at the Chinsurah Dunlop ground in Hooghly district around 2:45 pm.
In the 2016 assembly polls, TMC’s Asit Majumdar defeated All India Forward Bloc leader Pranab Kumar Ghosh by 29,684 votes from Chinsurah (falls under Hooghly Lok Sabha seat). While Asit Majumdar got 11,8501 votes, Pranab Kumar Ghosh secured 88817 votes in Chinsurah assembly constituency.
However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP rose exponentially in some parts of Hooghly and it became a bastion of the saffron brigade after Locket Chatterjee won the Hooghly Lok Sabha seats. But, the party has failed to secure two other Lok Sabha seats which include Serampore and Arambagh (which went to TMC) in 2019 Lok Sabha.
This is the reason BJP has decided to keep a public meeting in Hooghly for PM Modi to help the state leadership in gaining ground in Serampore and Arambagh which is known as a strong ground of TMC leaders like Kalyan Banerjee and Aparupa Poddar respectively.
Around 4:00 pm, PM Modi will inaugurate the extension of Metro Railway from Noapara to Dakshineswar. The total cost of this project was Rs 464 crore and the extension will cover a distance of nearly 4.1 km.
The project was aimed to decongest the road traffic in the northern fringes of the city and also to connect famous Kali temples at Kalighat and Dakshineswar for the convenience of tourists and devotees.
The two newly built metro railway stations — Baranagar and Dakshineswar – are loaded with state of the art modern amenities for the commuters. It was designed with murals, photographs, sculptures and idols of Bengali icons.
He will also inaugurate the third line between Kalaikunda and Jhargram covering a distance of 30 km of the 132 km long Kharagpur-Adityapur Third Line Project of South Eastern Railway. The project was approved with a total project cost of Rs 1,312 crore.
He will also dedicate Rs 240 crore (total cost) doubling of Azimganj to Khagraghat Road section, which is a part of the Howrah-Bandel-Azimganj section of Eastern Railway,
There are 18 assembly seats including Uttarpara, Sreerampur, Chamdani, Singur, Chandannagar, Chinsurah, Balagarh, Pandua, Sapragram, Chanditala, Jangipara, Haripal, Dhanekhali, Tarakeswar, Pursurah, Arambagh, Goghat and Khanakul in Hooghly assembly constituency.
In 2016, Trinamool Congress won 16 seats, while Left Front and Congress won one seat each from Pandua (CPIM’s Sheikh Amjad Hossain defeated TMC’s Saiyad Rahim Nabi) and Champdami (Congress leader Abdul Mannan defeated TMC’s Muzaffar Khan).
