Lakhs of people stood in silence for a minute in the rain-soaked Esplanade in the heart of the historic metropolis on Friday afternoon, commiserating with the victims of violence in Manipur, as Mamata Banerjee vowed unwavering support to the persecuted in the strife-torn northeastern state.

“Let’s all stand in silence for a minute to express our solidarity with those who lost their lives in Manipur.... For the women who had to lose their dignity in the face of barbarism,” the Bengal chief minister said while wrapping up her speech at the July 21 rally.

She began her 41-minute address by touching on the strife in Manipur and kept revisiting the leitmotif while building her attack on the BJP-led Centre over its failure to control the situation in the northeastern state.

“At the very outset, on behalf of Bengal and INDIA (the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), I want to say we are with you (Manipur). I want to express my solidarity with the people of Manipur. We want to assure each and every Manipuri that we are standing by them and we will stand with them at all times,” said the Trinamul Congress chairperson.

“The atrocities that we are witnessing in Manipur are condemnable in the harshest terms. Manipur is burning... in fact, the whole nation is burning today,” she added.

Mamata intensified her attack on the saffron camp over the Manipur strife on Thursday after outrageous visuals of the purported incident of two women being paraded naked and harassed physically by men in the northeastern state had emerged.

The Trinamul chief, who was dismissive of Modi’s statement on Thursday — which ended his long public silence on the raging issue — on Friday demanded answers from him. “The Prime Minister is busy with whataboutery, which is clear from his speech. Instead of actually condemning the Manipur atrocities, he is wrongly equating it with other states (with non-BJP governments),” the chief minister said.

“Are you (Modi) so heartless? Have you not the slightest love or respect for women? You wag your finger at Bengal instead. How long will you allow the persecution of women, Dalits, minorities, and tribal people?” asked Mamata, going on to warn her party’s rank and file of the saffron ecosystem’s propensity to fabricate stories and use doctored videos to further its defamatory anti-Bengal propaganda.

She attacked the saffron regime over the 150-plus central teams sent to Bengal, allegedly at the drop of a hat, to inconvenience or harass the ruling dispensation here and over shouting from the rooftops with the demand for central intervention by way of Articles 355 or 356.

“Modiji, you need to think and realise that the government and the party are separate…. These merchants of terror are busy sending central teams to Bengal, but why aren’t central teams being sent to Manipur? BJP leaders in Bengal openly claim that they would have Presidential rule imposed in Bengal, but why not in Manipur?” she asked.

“You (Modi) need to develop some degree of magnanimity…. You go abroad and weep for the nation. But those in the nation who weep because of you, what of them?” asked the chief minister.

A Trinamul Congress supporter at the Martyrs’ Day rally holds aloft a portrait of Mamata Banerjee. Pradip Sanyal

On Thursday, Mamata had floated the idea of a peacemaking visit to the strife-torn Manipur by a group of chief ministers from the 26-party INDIA, in which she is a principal figure. On Friday, she said it would happen soon and the modalities were being worked out among the INDIA constituents.

Mamata also built on the general theme of the alleged ill-treatment of women under the saffron regime, bringing up other issues such as the remission of gang-rape convicts in the Bilkis Bano case and the kid-glove treatment meted out to outgoing Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in the sexual harassment case registered by six women grapple.

“The central government’s so-called Beti Bachao (save the daughters) initiative has effectively turned into a beti jalao (burn the daughters) drive,” said Mamata.

She had, in the campaign for the perform-or-perish 2021 Assembly elections, devoted special focus to women, urging them to vote against the BJP.

“Women are, after all, our mothers, sisters… our goddesses, our icons. If you dare keep toying with the dignity of women, then listen carefully, in the next (general) election, it will be the women who will ensure that you are thrown out of power from India,” she added on Friday.