'I'll live like Royal Bengal Tiger': Mamata Banerjee unafraid; 'Gujarat won't rule Bengal'

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday compared herself to a Royal Bengal Tiger, saying that she is not a weak person who can be intimidated by the BJP.

Her comments came on a day when BJP president JP Nadda asserted that the rich culture of West Bengal is under threat in Mamata Banerjee's rule, and said she should atone for the "misrule and misgovernance" of her regime as days of TMC ministry are numbered.

'I will live like a Royal Bengal Tiger'

Addressing a rally in Baharampur in Murshidabad, the capital of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daullah's empire, she also compared those who left the TMC to join the saffron party to Mir Jafar, a commander of his army who betrayed him in the Battle of Plassey against the British in 1757.

"There is no reason to think I am weak, I am not a person to be afraid of anything. I am a strong person and will keep my head high as long as I live and till then I will live like a Royal Bengal Tiger," Banerjee said.

Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of wrongly claiming at a BJP meeting in Haldia on Sunday that government employees in West Bengal do not get salaries properly, she alleged that it is the Centre which is selling off BSNL, SAIL and privatising the Railways and insurance companies.

READ | Harsha Bhogle confident of India staging a comeback despite bitter defeat in 1st Test

READ | Nadda slams Mamata over 'insider-outsider' argument, says 'dictatorship not WB's culture'

Raking up the outsider issue, the TMC supremo claimed that the BJP is a party of Gujarat and Delhi, which is bringing in National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). Mamata asserted that she will not allow these in West Bengal. "People from Gujarat will not rule Bengal, the Trinamool Congress will rule Bengal," Banerjee said at the rally held ahead of the assembly elections in the state due in April-May.

The TMC's slogan of 'Maa, Mati, Manush' (mother, land and people) has been reduced to "dictatorship, tolabaji (extortion) and appeasement", JP Nadda said, adding the BJP would bring "asol paribartan" (real change) in Bengal. Continuing his attack on Banerjee, he said the people of Bengal have made up their mind to elect a BJP government in the assembly polls. Speaking exclusively to Republic TV, the BJP president also lashed out at Mamata Banerjee for fueling the insider-outsider divide.

READ | PM Modi gets emotional while bidding farewell to Cong MP Ghulam Nabi Azad in Rajya Sabha

READ | Bihar Cabinet: 17 new Ministers inducted; BJP's Shahnawaz Hussain is new Industry Minister

(With agency inputs)