Setting the agenda for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday urged the people of West Bengal to elect as many BJP MPs from the State that would make Prime Minister Narendra Modi credit West Bengal for his third term.
“Give that many seats to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election from the State so that Modi ji after taking oath says he has become Prime Minister due to Bengal,” the Home Minister said while addressing a rally at Kolkata’s Esplanade area.
In a departure from his stand taken at his last public meeting at Birbhum, where the BJP leader in April 2023 had set a target of 35 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the State, Mr. Shah did not fix any number but made repeated references to the 2026 Assembly election in West Bengal. He asserted that the BJP would form the next government in the State with two-thirds majority.
After the 2021 Assembly election, when the Trinamool resisted the BJP’s high-pitched election campaign, Mr. Shah and the BJP leadership at the Centre had gone silent on the BJP’s prospects in the State. “The development of Bengal is the biggest priority for Modi ji. [Chief Minister] Mamata Banerjee does not allow Modi ji to carry out development in the State,” Mr. Shah said, accusing the Mamata government of destroying the State.
The BJP had won 18 of the 42 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and garnered a vote share of about 40%. Since the 2019 general election, however, the BJP vote share has declined. It dropped to 20% in the panchayat elections held earlier this year. One of the biggest criticisms faced by the BJP is that it is a party of outsiders and leaders are parachuted to the State only ahead of elections. BJP insiders feel that Mr. Shah’s emphasis on the Assembly election of 2026 while sounding the poll bugle of 2024 is an attempt to churn the State politics which has been rocked by allegations of corruption faced by Trinamool functionaries.
During his 25-minute speech, the Home Minister touched on a number of issues, from the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and infiltration across the India-Bangladesh border, to the scams involving Trinamool leaders.
Mr. Shah dared Ms. Banerjee to suspend leaders like Jyoti Priya Mallick, Anubrata Mondal and Partha Chatterjee for their alleged involvement in the scams. While Mr. Chatterjee was suspended from the party and government, Mr. Mallick remains a Minister and Mr. Mondal a key Trinamool leader. “She [Ms. Banerjee] cannot suspend them. She prays to Goddess Durga every day that they [accused leaders] do not name her nephew [Abhishek Banerjee in the scams],” the BJP leader said.
Mr. Shah also made a veiled reference to MP Mahua Moitra who is embroiled in a “cash for question” controversy with the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha recommending her suspension. The Home Minister accused the Trinamool leadership of denigrating the dignity of Parliament by accepting gifts for asking questions in Parliament. The Home Minister reiterated his stand on the CAA and stressed that no one can stop its implementation.
“Citizenship (Amendment) Act is the country’s law, no one can stop it and we will implement it,” Mr. Shah said while allaying fears of the Matua community which is upset with the delay in framing CAA Rules. A few days ago, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra while addressing a public meeting at Matua-dominated Thakurnagar said CAA Rules will be framed by 2024.
Most of the sitting BJP MPs were present at the rally outside Kolkata’s Victoria Buildings, the venue for the annual Trinamool Congress Martyrs’ Day rally to remember workers killed in police firing on July 21, 1993. The BJP got permission to hold the rally at the venue after the intervention of the Calcutta High Court.
