Varun Gandhi downplays Modi's Kolkata rally, says it was 'okay'

Varun Gandhi, who has been given the responsibility of organising campaigns and rallies in West Bengal by the BJP, said that the Narendra Modi rally was ‘okay’ and that the turnout was not as big as the party expected. The Indian Express quoted Varun as saying_, “You have got the figures wrong. It is not true that 200,000 plus people turned up at the meeting. The crowd was at the most 45,000 to 50,000.”_ [caption id=“attachment_1378685” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Varun Gandhi. AFP[/caption] The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate addressed a rally in Kolkata on 6 February at the Brigade Parade grounds, where he tried to impress the crowd with a speech replete with Bengali words like roshogolla and told the crowd aami tomay bhaalobaashi. When The Indian Express asked Gandhi about his opinion on the content of Modi’s speech, he said, “I am not to comment on that. You should ask state leaders like (state unit president) Rahul Sinha.” During his speech Modi took on Mamata Banerjee and the TMC government. “In the land where women are given the highest respect girl children can’t go to school because there are no toilets in government schools,” he had said. Modi slammed the CPM government and the Mamata Banerjee government together, though he went a little soft on the latter. “I congratulate you for having overthrown a regime that sucked the blood out of Bengal, that destroyed its ‘sonar Bangla’ reputation,” he said. He then spoke about ‘poriborton’. “You called for poriborton (change). Have you seen poriborton around you? Can you see the change, do you feel the change?” he asked, taking a direct dig at the Mamata Banerjee government.