KOLKATA — Amid hike in the price of the cooking fuel, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Centre, alleging that it is harassing common people.
“We always try to be by people at all levels. On the other hand, the job of the Union government and the BJP is only to harass people. The way the gas price has been hiked will surely affect the lives of ordinary people. Today, the girls and women of West Bengal will take to the streets in protest. They will be wearing black sarees as a mark of the protest,” the Chief Minister said.
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, the Chief Minister said each day of the year is Women’s Day for her.
“A society where girls are not well off can never be well off. Therefore, the West Bengal government has taken many groundbreaking programmes from day one to ensure that they can advance in every aspect of life,” the Chief Minister said in her social media statement.
She highlighted women-specific welfare and dole schemes which the West Bengal government, led by her, had introduced during the last 15 years of the Trinamool Congress regime.
She also claimed that, in terms of women’s safety, the situation in West Bengal is the best among all Indian states.
“Even the Union government itself has acknowledged that Kolkata is the safest city in the country. In order to further strengthen this security, Kolkata Police has recently launched the ‘Pink Booth’ and all-women ‘SHINING’ mobile services. This initiative is to make women feel more secure at night,” the Chief Minister said.
Leaders of the West Bengal unit of the BJP, however, had ridiculed these claims of the Chief Minister on women’s safety and said that the state of affairs in West Bengal is evident from daily cases of ghastly rapes and murders, with those attached to Trinamool Congress being the perpetrators in most such cases. – IANS
