Zee Media Bureau
Burdwan: Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that it was their democratic right to voice protest against `deprivation and insult` to her state.
While defending the agitation by her party MPs in Parliament yesterday over the Railway Budget, Mamata added that those who were elected from Bengal would speak for the people, `not just once but a thousand times`.
“I was an MP for 23 years. I will not make any comment on what the Speaker said inside the House. But it was a democratic right to voice protest in a democratic manner. Bengal has been deprived. Trinamool Congress will give reply to such deprivation and insult to Bengal," Banerjee said, as per PTI.
She made these comments while addressing newsmen after attending an administrative meeting here.
Later addressing a public meeting here, she said that while she was the Railway minister, she had showered Bengal with projects as well as for other states.
"I have given 13 (new) trains to a small state Kerala. We are not beggers. Rights are not bestowed automatically, they have to be snatched," Banerjee said.
She also slammed the Central government for the rise of prices of petrol and diesel, saying "prices of petrol and diesel were being increased on a regular basis. Prices of kerosene and fertilizers were also rising. What people will eat?"
Trinamool Congress workers staged protests on the issue at Bhowanipore in south Kolkata, the Assembly constituency represented by the Chief Minister, and also outside the Eastern Railway Headquarters at Fairlie Place where they burnt an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ugly scenes were witnessed in the Lok Sabha yesterday when BJP and Trinamool Congress members came almost to blows over the Railway Budget whose withdrawal was demanded by members from West Bengal.
With PTI inputs
