New Delhi: With the BJP and the RSS unleashing the Hindutva card in Bengal, it’s trouble time for Trinamul supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been branded by the saffronites as the “queen of minority politics.”
The rapid consolidation of the Hindu votebank by BJP became evident when the party stunned all by coming second in the Kanthi (south) Assembly by-poll and grabbing nearly 30 per cent of the vote share. While Trinamul won the elections, CPI(M) and Congress candidates lost their deposits. Also, for the first time Bengal witnessed massive rallies across the state during Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti. Nearly 200 rallies with participants wielding swords, brandishing lathis were held across the state.
A section of the Trinamul Congress leaders feel that Ms Banerjee’s politics of “minority appeasement” is helping the BJP become an alternative among the Hindus, which include the so-called Bengali bharalok.
Last month, in Coimbatore, the RSS in its National Council meet spoke of the “alarming” situation in West Bengal, and accused the ruling Trinamul Congress for the “rise of jihadi elements” and the “decline” of the Hindu population in Bengal. The RSS had also organised Makar Sankranti functions in Kolkata.
Pushing its Hindutva agenda in Bengal, the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, launched a scathing attack on Ms Banerjee, claiming that her “blatant and brazen appeasement of Muslims in West Bengal has created a volatile situation, unprecedented in the state’s history.”
