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Didi fumes over Gorakhpur horror

Referring to recent infant deaths, Bengal CM sends strong message to Yogi govt in largest state

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee speaks at a function in Kolkata on Friday
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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at an event on Friday fired fresh salvos at the Centre. The fiery CM said the Central government talked too much, while her government did more work than talking.

Referring to the Gorakhpur infant deaths, Mamata said despite being a cash-strapped state, Bengal has achieved much which they won't be able to. "We had been burdened with a loan which we inherited from the previous government. The percent of institutional delivery was 65 in 2011 and, now we have brought it up to 92 per cent. Infant mortality rate has gone down to 26 every 1000 as opposed to the 32 every 1000 that was there during the previous regime. If we can do it, why can't they come up with such social welfare schemes? They have enough money," she said', adding there were about 850 swine flu deaths in recent times. "Is it not serious?" she asked.

Taking a dig at UP health minister Siddarthnath Singh, Mamata said without naming him, "There is a health minister who had come here and said 'Bhaag Mamata Bhaag'. Where will he go now?"

Asked about the unity among Opposition parties she said it would be a lot clearer in the next six months. "I don't want to talk about it now. There is no front but we are coming together. In next six months, there will be many more parties which will join us and some from their side too. Now they are afraid to speak out because the Centre would let Central investigating agencies loose after them," she said and also said that she was not worried about Nitish Kumar defecting to BJP. "You are talking about one Nitish Kumar I can see hundreds of Lalu Prasad and Akhilesh Yadav," she added.

Replying to party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek 'O Brien's tweet that more than a dozen parties across the country were looking at Mamata for leadership, she said, "Derek is my spokesperson and perhaps that is why he has blown it out of proportion to please me. The situation is not like that. I believe in collective leadership."

Among the audience was vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, Professor Suranjan Das who said that funds which used to come from the Centre for several students' welfare schemes had dried up. Responding to it, Mamata said, "As people's representative we have some responsibilities towards the people which we should fulfil. They say a lot of things before an election. Later, they go back on their words. We try to keep our commitments. They have been talking about digitisation so much but we had introduced it silently long back. What they are doing is saffronisation of education. All they do is publicise themselves. We don't need political marketing. I only have a facebook account and a twitter handle and there too all my followers are genuine. I have heard of people who pay huge money to tweak figures indicating the number of 'followers' or 'likes'."

Mamata said there was a 'super dictatorship' going on in the country. "Why will they bulldoze me? Democracy is endangered. During the time of Atal Behari Vajpayee, we had no problem. Why is problem being created by the party for everyone now?" Mamata asked.

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