Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has always shown a "dictatorial behaviour" which can be compared with that of the United States President Donald Trump, the state BJP unit chief, Dilip Ghosh, said on Monday.
"She (Mamata Banerjee) has always shown Trump-like adamant behaviour, a dictatorial behaviour that doesn't believe in democracy," he was quoted by news agency ANI as saying.
Ms Banerjee later counterattacked. "All of India is collapsing. Once they did notebandi (notes ban) ... next Covid put us under house arrest... next they will put us in jail: jailbandi. Later they will turn India into a bandi -- prisoner. Just like Trump is doing, after losing, they will insist 'we have won, we have won'! They are the same. Two sides of the same coin," she said.
President Trump, who lost the presidential election last year to Joe Biden, has been facing severe criticism from across the world for allegedly instigating a mob that attacked the US Capitol building last week.
PM Modi, who has called Mr Trump his friend on several occasions, had condemned the attack. "The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests," he tweeted last week.
Mr Ghosh also attacked Ms Banerjee over the exodus of senior leaders from her party, the Trinamool Congress.
"Her party itself has no democracy, people are leaving and going away. There's no democracy or law and order in the state," he said.
The BJP - which had won 18 of the state's 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 - aims to win this year's state elections and form its first-ever government in Bengal. The Trinamool has dismissed the BJP's plans as "daydreaming".
The JP Nadda-led party's political push into the state that had been a Left versus Trinamool battleground for years, has triggered a bitter turf war in the state.
Last month, BJP chief JP Nadda's convoy had come under attack in Bengal, allegedly from Trinamool supporters. However, he went back to the state last week and carried out a roadshow. He later said that the ruling party had been working with a "criminal instinct".
"The ruling political party is working with a criminal instinct. Corruption has been institutionalised. The point-blank attack on a protected leader like me is a testament to the state of law and order to which a regular citizen is subject," he said.