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New Delhi: Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling party in West Bengal, on Thursday slammed the BJP-led Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the option of only vegetarian food on the newly launched Vande Bharat sleeper train between Kolkata and Kamakhya in Guwahati, where the famous temple is located.
Launching a sharp attack on the Centre, the party wrote on X, "First, they policed our votes. Now they’re policing our plates. Just days ago, PM Modi was busy boasting about giving Bengal a new Vande Bharat sleeper train. What he didn’t mention, however, is that on the Vande Bharat train running from Bengal to Assam, fish and meat have been taken off the menu."
The party pointed out how non-vegetarian food is intertwined with the people of both West Bengal and Assam. Notably, Bengal is a state where fish and meat are considered staple foods. The TMC said, “A train connecting two regions where people cherish non-vegetarian food now offers only vegetarian options.”
The TMC also accused PM Modi of 'deriding' Bengalis. The accusation comes just months before the Bengal Assembly elections. The party said that PM Modi "derides fish-eating Bengalis as ‘Mughals’. Diktats are issued banning fish in Delhi. A poor street vendor is brutally assaulted for selling chicken patties. Today it’s what we eat. Tomorrow, it’s what we wear. Who we love. How we live."
It added, "What we’re witnessing is the ‘Banchte Chai, BJP Tai’ model, where Bengalis are pushed into submission by Bangla-Birodhi Zamindars imposing monolithic, homogenised identities on our plural ethos. Bengal will not take lessons on identity from those who neither understand nor respect it.”
On January 17, PM Modi flagged off the first Vande Bharat sleeper train in the country. It is a semi-high-speed, fully air-conditioned train, and its first commercial run is taking place between the Howrah station in Bengal and Kamakhya. According to reports, the train has received stupendous response with tickets selling quickly. On January 22, it will commence its first commercial journey from Kamakhya, and the journey from Howrah will be on January 23. It will run six days a week and will take 14 hours to cover the distance between Howrah and Kamakhya.
