Union Home Minister Amit Shah addresses the ‘Jan Sampark Samavsk’ rally organized by the BJP party in Birbhum (West Bengal) on April 14, 2023. Twitter/@AmitShah
Union Home Minister Amit Shah sounded the poll bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal by setting a target of 35 seats in the upcoming general elections on April 14, 2023. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the home minister asked the West Bengal BJP to almost double its numbers.
Launching a scathing attack on the Trinamool Congress government, the BJP leader raised the issue of corruption in the recruitment scam as well as violence during Ram Navami processions in the state. Addressing a public meeting at Suri in Birbhum district, the home minister said, “Give Modi ji (Narendra Modi) 35 seats from the state and no one will dare to attack Ram Navami processions.” While allegations of inciting violence during Ram Navami were leveled at a section of BJP leaders, the home minister blamed the state’s ruling party’s “appeasement politics” for communal flare-ups in Rishra in Hooghly and Shibpur in Howrah.
Mr. Shah’s two-day visit to the state is taking place after 11 months and just before the panchayat elections in the state. The BJP leader urged people to vote for the BJP to end “violence, infiltration, cow smuggling and corruption” in West Bengal. Citing the example of neighboring Assam where the BJP is in power, the Home Minister claimed that infiltration and cow smuggling has stopped in the state. “Give BJP 35 seats in 2024 and Mamata ji’s (Banerjee) government will fall before 2025,” he said. The Trinamool Congress won 213 of the 294 assembly seats in the 2021 assembly elections defeating the BJP and the next assembly elections in the state are due in 2026.
Mr Shah in his speech not only targeted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee but also her nephew and Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. In his 20-minute speech, he used the phrase “didi aur bhatija (aunt and her nephew)” several times and alleged that Ms Banerjee’s only intention was to appoint her nephew as chief minister. “The chief minister may dream that his nephew will be the chief minister. Today I want to assure the people that the next Chief Minister of the state will be from the BJP.
The Home Minister referred to the recruitment scam and cash worth crores recovered from the houses of associates of Trinamool leaders. “No matter how hard Mamata ji and her nephew try, the fight against corruption will continue,” he said. The public meeting in Birbhum by the top BJP leadership is being held at a time when Trinamool Congress’s Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal is on the back foot in Delhi for his alleged role in the cross-border cattle smuggling scam. Pointing to Anubrata Mondal, the home minister said, “Those arrested by the Government of India for cattle smuggling are still district presidents of the party (Trinamool).”
The home minister also spoke on the ongoing investigation into the seizure of huge quantity of explosives including 80,000 detonators and 27,000 kg of ammonium nitrate from Birbhum and said that if the NIA (National Investigation Agency) was not there, the explosives would never have happened. found. While the NIA is probing the case and has recently arrested two accused in the case, however, the seizure of the explosives was made by the Special Task Force of the Kolkata Police in June 2022.
The Trinamool Congress reacted by calling Mr Shah a “season bird”. “A seasonal bird is here in Bengal but no one wants to see it! Mr @AmitShah, go back to Delhi and do your work. Obviously, nobody in Bengal is interested in your nonsense, your lies, your hate agenda. Go spew poison somewhere else!” the party tweeted from its official handle. Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the home minister is talking about nepotism on the platform with “Adhikari Pvt Ltd”. Mr Ghosh was targeting Suvendu Adhikari, whose father Sisir Adhikari and brother Dibyendu Adhikari are both MPs representing the Trinamool Congress. In an attempt to take on the Home Minister, the Trinamool Congress will hold a public meeting at the same place in Birbhum on Sunday.