Centre isolating Hindus, says Mamata

Kolkata:  In a sharp attack on the Narendra Modi-led central government over the attacks on Dalits in Gujarat by cow protection vigilantes, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday accused it of not even sparing the Hindu community and isolating them. She also slammed the Centre over a students' scholarship portal not being functional for a year, and accused it of not being serious about giving scholarship money to minority students. "The only thing you (the Centre) do is propagate fundamentalism, do ads and cow census. They are just dividing people. Sometimes there are attacks on Dalits, sometimes on Christians, sometimes on Muslims," Banerjee said in her address at a programme on minority development. "They don't even spare the Hindu community from attacks. They isolate the Hindu community more. I am saying as a Hindu that we don't want this anymore. We want to walk together with all," she said. Stressing on equality of religions, the Trinamool Congress supremo flayed the Centre for failing to rectify technical problems in a portal that deals with scholarships for students, including from the minority community. "When I went to Delhi last week I told the Prime Minister that students are being deprived due to technical problems with the scholarship portal. The Centre has created a portal where applications aren't getting submitted. It is not working since a year. If the portal is not working then why should our students suffer. Either they can repair it or they are not giving the money to the minorities citing the breakdown of the portal as the reason. This is most unfortunate," she said. She also took pot shots at the Centre for the profusion of advertisements. "You do no work but advertisements run from day to night. So how come the portal breakdowns when you have to give scholarship to students. It's your responsibility to rectify the problem immediately," she pointed out. Alleging that the ruling BJP was instigating people via social media, Banerjee urged the minorities in Bengal to "not be provoked by the BJP".