Amid a growing push by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliated outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on Monday, has hit out at the BJP alleging that the saffron party is “worshipper of (demon king) Ravana” and not Lord Ram.

Accusing the BJP of seeking to win votes in the name of God, Banerjee said her party, the TMC, was not like that. “We don’t sell the name of god to earn votes,” she said.“They (the BJP) perform puja of Ravana and not Ram, as they try to spread differences among people,” the CM said at a public rally in Jamboni.

She accused the saffron party of trying to divide people in the name of Lord Ram. “They talk of Ram, we pray before Goddess Durga; Lord Ram also performed Durga Puja.”

The CM said her party follows the tenets of ‘Sarva Dharma’ ~accommodating all religions and not differentiating people on the basis of faith.

Banerjee also accused the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of financial mismanagement, and claimed that its ‘Jan Dhan’ scheme will soon turn out to be a ‘big scam’. She said that before the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the BJP had promised to bring back black money from foreign shores and give those away to the poor, “but nothing has happened. Now they (BJP) are trying to use black money to spread canards and divide people,” Banerjee alleged.

Alleging that the BJP was trying to “divide people on religious lines”, the Trinamul supremo sought to know the role played the saffron party during Maoist violence in Junglemahal.

“Hundreds of people died every year from Maoist violence and police action during the period of unrest in Junglemahal. Where were they (BJP) when people were actually starving to death?” she said. Maoist violence was largely contained in the rural areas of West Bengal after the Trinamul Congress came to power in 2011.

“I had visited all Maoist-affected places, including Lalgarh and Goaltore, where no one dared to tread at that time,” she recounted.

Without taking names, Banerjee also alleged that “Maoists were being brought to Bengal from neighbouring Jharkhand” to create unrest in the state. She also took at a dig at the Chhattisgarh government for not being able to control the menace. “In Chhattisgarh, the BJP despite being in power, the Maoist violence is still rampant,” she added.