‘I wanted to give him a tight slap of democracy’: Mamata Banerjee on PM Modi’s ‘Tolabaaz’ jibe

Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his ‘Tolabaaz’ (extortionists) jibe, Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that she ‘wanted to give him a tight slap of democracy’.  

Earlier, PM Modi had said that West Bengal under Banerjee was known for "triple T - Trinamool, Tolabaazi, Tax". In local parlance, 'tolabaazi' roughly means organised extortion.

#WATCH West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee in Purulia: Money doesn't matter to me.That is why when Narendra Modi came to Bengal and accused my party of being Tolabaaz (Toll collector), I wanted to give him a tight slap of democracy pic.twitter.com/JnE5xywWJI

— ANI (@ANI) May 7, 2019

Maintaining that the state has already seen three political ideologies -Naampanthi (people who rule by using the name of family--Congress), Vaampanthi (Leftist), Daam aur Damanpanthi (people who rule through corruption and oppression--TMC)-- Modi said time has come for it to adopt "Vikaspanthi" (people wedded to the ideology of development) represented by the BJP.

A war of word has erupted between the Prime Minister and West Bengal Chief Minister after the former accused the later of doing "cheap politics" over Cyclone Fani, claiming she did not speak to him when he tried to contact her to talk about the calamity.

He alleged his efforts to talk to West Bengal government officials to take stock of the situation too was "scuttled" by the chief minister. The prime minister also accused Banerjee of "religious intolerance", and said people were being arrested for chanting 'Jai Shri Ram'.

He dared the chief minister to have him arrested for the chant hailing the Lord.

"Today, I am back from Odisha after reviewing the situation in the aftermath of the cyclone. I had called 'Didi' twice to discuss the issue with her. I waited for her to call back, but she did not respond.

"She is so arrogant that she did not speak to me.

'Speedbreaker' Didi is more interested in doing cheap politics instead of tackling the situation," Modi told election rallies in Tamluk and Jhargram.

The Trinamool chief responded to the prime minister's criticism, saying she could not talk to him because she was campaigning in Kharagpur to monitor the situation as the cyclone advanced towards West Bengal.