Shah Tasks BJP To Win Bhowanipore, 170 Seats in WB Polls; Mamata Hits Back

Kolkata: In his first ever rally in West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's bastion: Bhowanipore, union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday tasked BJP to defeat the Trinamul Congress supremo in her home turf and win 170 seats among 294 in the ensuing Assembly Election in the state.

Mr Shah also announced his stay for 15 days in the state during the polls before he led a roadshow near Ms Banerjee's residence at Harish Chatterjee Street in Kalighat and accompanied leader of the opposition and Bhowanipore BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari in filing his nomination.

Hitting back at the union home minister, Ms Banerjee later demanded his resignation from her campaign rallies in Murshidabad for orchestrating unrest and raising 'demography change' allegation in the state. She also labelled him as a “dimwit.”

In the morning, Mr Shah told a party rally at Hazra More, “I want to make an appeal to the voters of Bhowanipore. The entire Bengal is ready to bid adieu to Mamata Banerjee. But it lies in the hands of the people of Bhowanipore to bring that change which is supposed to happen across Bengal. We will go upto 170 seats by winning one after another. Only then change will happen.”

He said, “But I have a shortcut. If people of Bhowanipore give us that one seat, the change will automatically reflect all over. Suvenduda wanted to fight at Nandigram only. But I asked him to defeat Mamata in her domain also. He holds a record. Though Mamata was able to form a government (last time), she lost to him in Nandigram. This time she will lose in Bhowanipore and entire Bengal.”

Attacking Ms Banerjee's party, Mr Shah claimed, “I'm going to stay in Bengal for 15 days for the polls here. There is only one slogan ‘Change this government, say Tata Bye Bye to Mamata Banerjee’ at every corner of the state. People of Bengal have been terrified by extortion, goondaism, lack of safety to women, demography change due to infiltration, bombing, shooting, unemployment and record corruption of Mamataji under TMC-rule.”

He further alleged, “People are demanding a change. A BJP government should be formed here. All the infiltrators have to be evicted from here by sealing the border of Bengal. This time no goon will have the audacity to stop the voters here. In this poll, TMC should not only be defeated but uprooted and thrown out of Bengal also.”

The union home minister then argued, “Bengal's existence has come under threat the way the level of infiltration, extortion, syndicate and corruption have shot up. The solution to all these is the formation of a BJP government here. Since 2014, whichever states have reposed their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they have moved to the path of growth and development. Now is the turn of Bengal.”

Retaliating to Mr Shah's charges, Ms Banerjee said at Sagardighi, “You don’t know about Bengal’s demography and then you are saying that the demography of Bengal has changed! This total fiasco has been done by Amit Shah with the help of the Election Commission. He should resign. I demand the resignation of the useless Home Minister.”

She pointed out, “He fails to protect our borders and has destroyed our country,” while accusing the union home minister of making “sinister plans” of deleting voters' names and misusing the NIA and CBI against his opponents.

At Suti, the TMC chief alleged Mr Shah of developing a blueprint of conspiracies. “He wants to use muscle power in the polls. If he has the guts, he should fight with us face to face. He is a dimwit. He thinks he is very powerful,” Ms Banerjee said.