Why afraid of a ‘paper tiger’, Narendra Modi asks Mamata

Bankura (WB): Why is Mamata Banerjee so afraid of a ‘paper tiger’, and what would happen if she faces a ‘real tiger’, Narendra Modi, BJP's prime ministerial candidate, said in reply to the Trinamool Congress chief’s barb that Modi was just a ‘paper tiger’. "You are so afraid of this paper tiger. Had a real tiger come before you, what would have happened to you?" Modi said at an election rally here.

"When a paper tiger is proving to be so tough, when you know the strength of a real tiger, then what will be your condition," Modi asked. He said the youth of Bengal were the real tigers, who have awakened now.

Earlier this week, Banerjee took a dig at Modi, saying there was a difference between a "paper tiger" and a Royal Bengal Tiger. "In Bengal, there is a Royal Bengal Tiger in the Sunderbans," she had said.

Modi launched an attack at the West Bengal chief minister for the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam and said: "You are talking about the tiger. If you have the guts... if you had put Saradha chit fund culprits in jail, conducted a probe and ensured the poor got their money back, then I would have admitted you are a tiger."

"A tiger never tries to save thieves and looters." He slammed at the TMC chief asking the kind of government she was running where anyone could open a company, take blessings of leaders, click photos with leaders, and run a chit fund and loot lakhs. And even as this was happening the people in the government were clapping, he said.

He said he would not take decisions on Bengal based on the abuses hurled by Banerjee. "I will only work for the benefit of the people of the state," he said. Modi said that if there was a strong government in Delhi, then Banerjee will also have to stop her drama and run the government seriously.