The Trinamool Congress on Friday asked whether the Narendra Modi government was trying to eliminate corruption or the Opposition by bringing the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025.
The TMC claimed that the Bill, introduced in Parliament earlier this week, which seeks to bar prime ministers, chief ministers, and ministers from holding office if they remain in jail for 30 days or more, is aimed at the Opposition parties and leaders.
Addressing a press conference in Kolkara, TMC leader and senior minister Shashi Panja claimed that since the people are raising their voice against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Modi government is targeting the Opposition through this bill.
She asked, "Are you trying to eliminate corruption or eliminate the opposition?" During his address at a public meeting in Kolkara on Friday, Modi accused the Opposition INDIA bloc, including the TMC, of shielding corruption and resisting legislative moves aimed at ensuring probity in public life.
Targeting the ruling party of West Bengal, the PM said, "Two TMC ministers, even after going to jail on corruption charges, were not willing to give up their posts." He was referring to former state education minister Partha Chatterjee, arrested in connection with the teachers' recruitment scam, and Jyoti Priya Mallick, apprehended for irregularities in ration distribution.
Panja claimed that the bill is meant to pressurise Opposition leaders, so that if they join the BJP, "they will be cleansed in the washing machine of the saffron party." She also claimed that of the 240 BJP MPs in Lok Sabha, more than 90 have cases against them, and 63 of them face serious charges.
"The BJP is throwing stones at others sitting in a glass room," the TMC leader said.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, who also addressed the press conference, said, "sitting beside Suvendu Adhikari, the PM raised charges of corruption." He said that it was the BJP that had once raised corruption allegations against Adhikari when he was in the TMC.
Panja said that infiltration is an issue that should be dealt with by the Centre since it is the Border Security Force (BSF), which is under the Union Home Ministry, that guards the frontiers of the country.
During his address, the prime minister came down heavily on the TMC, accusing it of promoting infiltration to fulfil their "hunger for power." "I see that the fingers are all pointing to him," Panja said regarding the infiltration of illegal immigrants in Bengal through the Indo-Bangladesh border.
Panja said that the Centre should take action if it identifies any Rohingya or other infiltrators inside the Indian borders.
The TMC has been alleging that Bengali-speaking migrant workers were facing harassment and branding as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in BJP-ruled states.
Claiming that the Centre owes a huge amount of money to the state, Panja said, "Bengal wants to be paid its dues of Rs 1.93 lakh crore and not gifts." Alleging that the Centre is not releasing funds to Bengal for its welfare schemes, she said that the Mamata Banerjee government has already funded 12 lakh houses under its own scheme and will pay for 16 lakh more such houses for people in West Bengal.
Stating that the BJP has time and again alleged impediments in holding of Durga Puja in Bengal, Panja said that the prime minister has now expressed happiness over the impending Durga Puja festival in September this year.
"We want to remind them that it is because of the efforts of Mamata Banerjee that the festival has reached such heights in Bengal and attracts such huge attention," she said.
Panja maintained that while the PM said that Bangla is a language of pride, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya said “it is not a language." Claiming that Bengali-speaking migrant workers were facing harassment in BJP-ruled states, she said that the workers with whom the prime minister sat during his Metro ride here also speak the Bengali language.
Responding to the PM for saying that if the BJP comes to power in West Bengal, then no one will have to go outside for work, Ghosh said that people from Bengal go to other states on work for decades.
"PM Modi should guarantee that no one will come to Bengal for work from other states; there are 1.5 crore people from outside residing in Bengal," he said.
Ghosh said that many people from Gujarat are happily living in Bengal.
He claimed that the BJP will lose terribly in the 2026 assembly elections in West Bengal.
"We saw it in 2016, we all heard their 'Abki baar 20 par' slogan in 2021 assembly polls," he said, maintaining that in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls also, the TMC's vote share increased while that of the BJP decreased in Bengal.
Panja claimed that PM Modi did not acknowledge the contribution of Mamata Banerjee who had as the then Railway Minister in 2011-2012 conceived the idea of the Metro projects he inaugurated on Friday.
She also questioned why Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu, a Sikh, sat beside Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, claiming that the Bengal BJP leader had once termed "a Sikh man as a Khalistani."
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