Siliguri:  Back in hills after nearly eight months, Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal talked peace and development at a rally in Siliguri on Tuesday.

Ms Banerjee renamed a road after Subhas Ghising, the founder of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), which started the movement for Gorkhaland in the late 1980s. The late GNLF leader had played a significant role in ensuring the construction of the road, she said.

Addressing a rally at the Kanchanjunga stadium in Siliguri, the Chief Minister hit out at the Centre, claiming that the Union Budget 2018 has completely ignored West Bengal. She said her party, the Trinamool Congress, is with Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP and completely understands their stand as Andhra Pradesh has also been deprived. Bengal government “fully supports Andhra Pradesh and others who have been neglected”, she said.

Elaborating on her party’s plans in the coming weeks, to step up protests against policies of the Narendra Modi government, Ms Banerjee said, TMC women’s cell will take out a rally on March 6 and 7, in every block and on March 8, a “massive rally will be organised in South Bengal and North Bengal to protest huge hike in fuel prices.

Without taking names, the Bengal Chief Minister alleged that “sitting in Assam, BJP is planning to divide North Bengal’s several districts by doing communal politics”.The Chief Minister’s Darjeeling visit is being seen as a stock taking exercise since the 104-day shutdown that crippled life in the hills.

With Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader Bimal Gurung losing his grip on his party, following the shutdown and the arrival of Binay Tamang faction of GJM, the Bengal government is reaching out to the people in Darjeeling, particularly workers of the tea estates, which were badly hit. Mr Tamang who is the chief of the Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA), backed by the state, has welcomed Mamata Banerjee’s visit to Darjeeling.