The poll battle in West Bengal is heating up with chief minister Mamata Banerjee accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of instigating riots in the state and home minister Amit Shah slamming the Trinamool Congress for making special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls “such a massive issue”.
Leaders of both the parties exchanged barbs on Saturday, March 28, in run up to the state assembly polls in West Bengal slated to place in April.
‘Security of Siliguri corridor threatened’
Amit Shah, while speaking in Kolkata on Saturday, said that the exercise of SIR was conducted across the country but nowhere else did judicial officers have to be deployed except in West Bengal.
Addressing the people of Bengal, Shah asked “whether infiltrators who have been kept here be allowed to decide the future of Bengal?”
“I want to make it clear on behalf of the BJP that we are resolved to identify and expel every single infiltrator from the country, not merely from the voter lists but from across the entire nation, and this is my party’s agenda,” he said.
The home minister also claimed that security of Siliguri corridor was threatened due to TMC’s “vote bank politics”.
He said that the country’s security is linked with the elections in Bengal “in a way” and that it is the only state “from where infiltrators are entering the country and creating disturbances”.
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Shah also sought to attack Banerjee and said that always played “politics of victim card”.
“At times, she gets her leg broken; at other times, she has her head bandaged; sometimes she falls ill; and then again, she stands before the Election Commission feigning helplessness while hurling abuses at the institution. But I have come to tell her that the people of Bengal have now thoroughly understood this politics of the victim card…” he said.
‘They have taken away all my powers’
At the same time, Banerjee also launched a scathing attack at the BJP and claimed that all her rights and powers as chief minister have been snatched away.
“I am the elected chief minister, but they have taken away all powers,” she said.
She also blamed the BJP for the recent violence in Raghunathgarh in Murshidabad district on Ram Navami and said, “do not blame me. All my rights have been snatched away. All officers have been transferred. BJP’s people have been sent here. But they do not know that it is we who will win. Riots were instigated in Raghunathganj. They should be ashamed. They (officers) have been transferred here so that they can instigate riots. Shops were vandalised in Raghunathganj…Who gave you the right to vandalise someone’s house? Who gave you the right to instigate riots in Raghunathganj?…All of this will be accounted for,” as quoted by news agency ANI.
Violence broke out in Murshidabad on Friday during the Ram Navami processions, with incidents of stone-pelting, vandalism and arson reported from multiple locations. The incident unfolded after an argument over music being played when a large procession headed towards Mackenzie Park in Raghunathganj and escalated into a clash.
Banerjee also warned that if the BJP comes to power in the state, “they will use bulldozers and throw everyone out”.
“SIR will be your death knell,” she warned the BJP.
The state assembly polls will be held in West Bengal in two phases on April 23 and 29 and the counting will be held on 4 May.
