Muslim vote bank is slipping out of her hands: Modi on Mamata

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for seeking en bloc votes of Muslims for Trinamool Congress and said that had his party made a similar appeal to Hindus, it would have been censored by the Election Commission.

Modi said Mamata's appeal to Muslims reflects that her "minority votes are slipping out of her hands."

"Didi (Mamata) recently asked all Muslims to vote en bloc for her. It shows that the Muslim vote bank is slipping out of her hands. Had we said the same thing that all Hindus should unite, everybody would have criticised us. The Election Commission would have sent us notices. We would have been censored," he said while addressing an election rally in Cooch Behar, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

His remarks came on a day when polling in the third phase of assembly elections in West Bengal was held in 31 assembly constituencies across three districts including some pockets with sizable presence of Muslims. Trinamool Congress had won all but one of the 31 constituencies in the previous poll five years ago.

Claiming a BJP wave was blowing across West Bengal and his party would form the next government, Modi said Mamata Banerjee's angry reactions indicates that she has lost the polls.

Taking a dig at Mamata's comment questioning whether BJP leaders predicting the party's victory were "gods or superhumans", Modi said no one needs to be superhuman to predict BJP's victory as the wave in favour of the saffron camp speaks for itself.

"Didi's exit is imminent. That is clear after the first two phases of polling," he said.

Slamming Trinamool Congress on the plank of corruption, Modi said, "Didi has started a new tax in Bengal -- 'Bhaipo Service Tax'!", an apparent reference to Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, the lawmaker from Diamond Harbour.

"For 10 years, your goons continued to loot Bengal, and you were a mute spectator. For 10 years, injustice with North Bengal continued, but you chose to be a mute spectator," he alleged.

Modi said, sensing defeat, Banerjee has turned jittery and was criticising everybody and everything, from EC to EVMs.