Pachkalguri (Siliguri), April 10: Narendra Modi (NaMo), the BJP prime ministerial candidate blustered the chief minister, alleged change of governance a fake one but praised the Gorkhas while he promised to fulfill the aspirations of the Gorkhas, Adivashis and Rajbonshis in his first ever political appearance in North Bengal on Thursday.
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| Narendra Modi’s Speech in Siliguri Darjeeling on 10th April 2014 |
Addressing a packed crowd of around 1.5 lakhs supporters of GJM-BJP-KPP combine, NaMo left no stone unturned woe the sentiments of the Gorkhas presumably knowing that BJP candidate S.S.Ahaluwalia for the Darjeeling is banking on the support of the GJM to seek a berth from Bengal. He chose though not to utter the word “Gorkhaland” but said, “When people have no faith on the police, they have faith on the Gorkhas and rely on their honesty. You dream is our dream”.
The BJP candidate from Varanasi added that the Gorkhas have been ignored. Taking the example of Tenzing Sherpa, the man who climbed Mt. Everest along with Sir Edmund Hillary, he said, “Both Delhi and Bengal have forgotten to honour such a great man. Time has come now to serve the demand of the Gorkhas, Rajbonshis and Adivashis”.
The party which is running high in spirits in India had stroke a deal with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) before the name for the Darjeeling seat was announced. The GJM has pledged support to the party with a hope that it will take a positive step towards formation of ‘Gorkhaland’ – a separate state to be carved out from Bengal. Banerjee however is univocal who has tie and again repeated that she will not allow division of Bengal.
The BJP manifesto that was released on April 7 interestingly had not mentioned about Gorkhaland putting prospects of BJP winning the seat in jeopardy but later brought out an addendum saying that it would sympathetically looking into the long pending demands of the Gorkhas, Adivashis and Rajbonshis.
Touching upon the infiltrators issue he said, “The Bangladeshi infiltrators have eaten up your rights,” he said adding the Delhi and West Bengal governments are not sympathetic for the sons of the soil.
Attacking the chief minister unlike in his rally in Kolkata where he had said that he supported the Bengal cash strap problem he lambasted saying that the change in Bengal is a fake one. “Rather than doing politics of vote bank by appeasing a particular community, she should have competed with smaller states in the field of development. The two and half years of governance of the TMC in West Bengal, has made people frustrated,” he added.
“The change in West Bengal is a fake one and you should now vote for the real change,” he said before his 32 minute-long-speech ended appealing to people to give the BJP five years time to serve them and see what it can do for the country.
Earlier in the morning the BJP’s star campaigner reached Pachkalguri on the outskirts of Siliguri by helicopter after arriving at Bagdogra airport in a chartered plane.
The crowd went hysteric after Modi’s helicopter was sited forcing S S Ahluwalia the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Darjeeling to stop his speech to raise the slogans like Har Har Modi and Abki Bar Modi Sarkar. Bimal Gurung the GJM president, Ahluwalia, Rahul Sinha the BJP West Bengal state president and Atul Roy the Kamtapur People’s Party (KPP) president, who were present on the dias welcomed him.
Vivek Ghatani – Editor Indian Gorkhas
