With the election campaign gaining momentum, Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Sunday chose to blame her protégé- turned-political foe Suvendu Adhikari, who has been pitted against her in Nandigram.

His father TMC MP Sisir Adhikari today joined the BJP at Union home minister Amit Shah’s rally at Egra in East Midnapore. Mamata even blamed herself for not recognising the “true face” of the influential Adhikari family in East Midnapore.

Addressing an election rally in Contai South, Mamata said that she has even heard rumours that the Adhikari family had built an empire worth Rs 5,000 crore. The chief minister also said she will get it investigated once she is voted to power.

Most members of the Adhikari family hold considerable political clout in the district. These members have either joined the BJP or expressed their desire to join the saffron party.

Comparing the Adhikari family with “Mir Jafar” (traitor), Mamata said the people of the region will not tolerate it and give befitting reply with ballots.

Mir Jafar, the military general of Bengal’s last independent nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, is considered a traitor for deceiving the besieged Nawab during the Battle of Plassey in 1757 which paved the way for British rule in India.

“I say I am a ‘big donkey’ (Ami ekta boro gadha) for having failed to recognise them. I don’t know (about it), but people say their `empire’ is worth Rs 5,000 crore and they will use money to buy votes. But don’t vote for them,” Mamata told the rally.

Blaming the Adhikari family for ruling the district as “zamindars” (landlords) by taking full control of the area, Mamata claimed that even she was not allowed to hold public meetings there.

Highlighting that all works like health, roads and other schemes were undertaken by the state government and not by the Adhikari family, Mamata urged the crowd to keep the BJP out of West Bengal to maintain peace and further the pace of development.

Earlier too, she had described Suvendu as a traitor, pointing out that she had blindly supported him when he was in the Trinamul Congress. Addressing three backto- back election campaigns at Contai South, Contai North and Nandakumar in East Midnapore, Mamata lashed out at the BJP terming it as a party of “rogues and goons”.

At the Nandakumar rally, Mamata attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said in her long career as a parliamentarian she has never seen such a “ruthless and cruel” PM.

“BJP party means ‘Bharatiya Joghonno (Bad) Party’. I was Lok Sabha MP seven times and I have seen many Prime Ministers. But I have never seen such a ruthless, cruel PM. The BJP is a party of monsters, demons, Ravana, Duryodhana, Dushasana, unrest and terror,” Mamata said.