In Bengal, Amit Shah sets new target for 2024 Polls
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set a target for the BJP to win 35 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in 2024. Asserting that Narendra Modi would again be the country’s prime minister in 2024, Shah said that leaders like Mamata Banerjee can never give a befitting reply to Pakistan or fight militancy in Kashmir.
Amit Shah has also claimed that the Mamata Banerjee government in the state won’t survive beyond 2025 if the goal is achieved.
While the party’s virtual number two Abhishek Banerjee, whom Shah had targeted in his speech, chipped in to say in a tweet that he would quit politics if the home minister released the “Rs.1.15 lakh crore rightfully due to my state.”
While addressing a rally in the Suri area of Birbhum district Amit Shah said, “Let me make it very clear that in 2024, Narendra Modi will again be the country’s Prime Minister. The people of Bengal have given us great responsibility by giving us 77 seats in the last Assembly polls. Give us more than 35 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal, and I can assure you that the corrupt TMC government won’t survive beyond 2025.”
The BJP won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal in the 2019 elections and observers said doubling this number would require an immense organizational challenge.
Later in the evening, while visiting Dakshineswar Kali Temple in Kolkata, Shah again exuded confidence about winning 35 Lok Sabha seats from the state and said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi would return to power by bagging more than 300 seats across the country in 2024 parliament polls.”.
Leaders like Mamata Banerjee can “never give a befitting reply to Pakistan, fight militancy in Kashmir,” the BJP leader said, adding that only Prime Minister Modi can handle such national issues.
Shah criticized the TMC over the arrest of its ministers and leaders in graft cases by ED and CBI and said the party should be ashamed of itself.
Referring to the criticism that central agencies have targeted the TMC for political reasons, Shah said those who engage in corruption and loot would eventually end up in prison.
“The next West Bengal chief minister will be from the BJP. Only the BJP can fight and defeat the corrupt TMC. Under Mamata Banerjee’s rule, West Bengal has become a hub of bomb-making factories,” the Union Home Minister claimed.
Citing the example of Assam, where infiltration and cow smuggling stopped after the BJP came to power in 2016, Shah said the same would be replicated in Bengal if the saffron camp comes to power. “TMC’s affinity towards corruption can be gauged from the fact that the party has yet to remove the person (Anubrata Mondal) as its district president even after being arrested in the cattle smuggling case,” he said. He also referred to the ongoing investigation into the seizure of a huge cache of explosives from Birbhum recently.
On recent clashes during Ram Navami rallies in West Bengal, Shah blamed it on the “appeasement politics” of the TMC government and said once the BJP wins more than 35 seats, “no one would dare attack Ram Navami rallies in the state.” Prohibitory orders were imposed in West Bengal’s Hooghly and Howrah districts, where clashes broke out between two groups during the Ram Navami procession. A youth from Bihar’s Munger was also arrested for carrying arms during a Ram Navami procession, whom the TMC has claimed was a BJP supporter.
Later after offering puja at Dakshineswar Temple, Shah said he prayed before Goddess that the “law and order situation improves in the state.”
After speaking at the rally in Suri, Shah inaugurated the district party office in Suri. He also met family members of the Bogtui massacre in Birbhum district, where nine persons were charred to death in March last year in the rivalry between two groups.
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