PM Modi was addressing a rally in Bengal's Purulia.
Two days after Mamata Banerjee said she wanted to give him a "tight slap of democracy", Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his response while campaigning in Bengal. At a rally in Purulia today, PM Modi said coming from "Didi", he would consider a slap a blessing. He also doubled down on his "tolabaazi" or extortion allegation that had provoked Mamata Banerjee's comments.
"I am told Didi has said she wants to slap me. Didi, oh Didi. I call you Didi. I respect you. Your slap will be a blessing for me," said the Prime Minister.
"I will accept it, but I will also say this - if you had the guts to slap your colleagues, who stole money from the poor via chit funds, you would not be so scared," he remarked, keeping up his relentless attack on the Trinamool chief on chit fund scandals and "tolabaazi" or extortionist tax.
"If you had the guts to slap the tolabaaz, then the Triple T....TMC Tolabaazi Tax...you would not be ruined by them," PM Modi said.
Responding to the Prime Minister, Ms Banerjee said. "I have never said I will slap the PM. I had said slap of democracy, try to understand the language."
On Tuesday, Mamata Banerjee had demonstrated at a public rally how every time PM Modi referred to her Trinamool as a party of "tolabaazi" or extortionists, she felt like giving him a "tight slap of democracy".
Mamata Banerjee at a rally demonstrated how she would give PM Modi a "slap of democracy".
She said: "Money does not matter to me. That is why when Narendra Modi came to Bengal and accused my party of being tolabaaz, I wanted to give him a tight slap of democracy."
This was after PM Modi's "Triple T" -- Trinamool, Tolabaazi, Tax -- attack on her. "Right from admission in schools and colleges, jobs in educational institutes and elsewhere one has to pay 'triple T' to get their work done. But this cannot continue always," the Prime Minister had said at a rally in Bengal on Saturday.
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool is facing an aggressive campaign by the BJP to make inroads into a state she has dominated since 2011, when she ended over three decades of Left rule.
West Bengal is voting in all seven phases of the marathon national election that ends on May 19.The results will be declared on May 23.