Mamata's ultimatum to outsiders : When in Bengal, speak Bangla

Kolkata: Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday insisted that those living in West Bengal will have to learn to speak in Bengali as she accused the BJP of targeting Bengalis and minorities to replicate the "Gujarat model" to capture power in the state.

The TMC supremo reiterated that outsiders instigated the doctors' agitation in the state and accused the BJP of targeting the Bengalis and the minorities.

She said she would never allow the BJP to turn West Bengal into Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, and asserted that "we will never allow Bengalis to become homeless in Bengal".

Banerjee, a vocal critic of the prime minister, said, "We have to bring Bangla (language) forward. When we go to Delhi we speak in Hindi, when we go to Punjab we have to speak in Punjabi. I do it.

When I go to Tamil Nadu, I don't know the Tamil language, but I know a few words. So in the same way if you are coming to Bengal you have to speak in Bengali...We would not allow that people will come from outside and beat up Bengalis."

Mamata intensified her demand for the return of the ballot paper system in polling and said her party will start a movement with this demand on the July 21 Martyr's Day Rally.

Accusing the BJP of programming the EVMs used in the 2019 polls, the Trinamool Congress supremo said "ballot papers are the only solution for reinstating democracy in the country".

"The EVMs were programmed. Otherwise they (BJP) would not have been able to win. After many EVMs malfunctioned during the polls, new machines were brought in without testing them in mock polls.

Who knows if they were pre-programmed? Did anybody check if those machines were overloaded or not?" Banerjee said .

"Our demand is, we do not want EVMs. We want ballot papers. We will start our movement based on this demand on July 21 this year.

Once we held a movement demanding no identity cards, no vote. 13 of our workers died that day. More than 100 workers were injured.

But we made sure that our demand was fulfilled. We will do the same this time as well," Banerjee said.