Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamatha Benerjee said India should have four “rotating capitals” instead of the one, and parliament sessions should alternate between major cities. Speaking on the occasion of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose’s 125^th birth anniversary on Saturday, she said “The English ruled the entire country from Kolkata. Why should there be only one capital city in our country”.

She also said “Parliament sessions, why only in Delhi? In Delhi everyone is an outsider”. “I say sessions of parliament should be held in different cities across the country in turn. We are not parochial… we are saying this (for) everyone. Why not a session in Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu or Kerala… why not one in Uttar Pradesh or Punjab or Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh? Why not one in Bihar or Odisha or in Kolkata? Why not one in the northeast?” she said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamatha Banerjee also questioned the Centre for deciding to build a new parliament but failing to construct a memorial for the freedom icon Netaji. “You are building new parliament (Rs 20,000 crore on the Central Vista project) and buying new planes (Rs 8,000 crore on custom-built Boeings) why no memorial for Netaji?” she questioned. She has repeatedly attacked the BJP as “outsiders” with special emphasis on “people come from Gujarat” ahead of Bengal Assembly elections in April-May.

Last month, she took on the BJP over its pre-election promise to turn Bengal into Gujarat and responded: “The soil of Bengal is the source of life. We have to protect this soil… no one who can come from outside and say this place will be turned into Gujarat”. A month before that she hit back after the BJP, in preparation for its Bengal campaign, created five organisational zones and put central leaders in charge of each. “There is no place for outsiders in Bengal. Those who come to the state only during elections and try to disturb peace of the state are not welcome,” she said.