Kolkata: Union home minister Amit Shah said the BJP would form the next government in West Bengal after the 2021assembly elections and a son of the soil would be the CM, unlike the Trinamol’s “family succession plan.” Launching a strong attack against chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said the Centre would not be deterred from implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Addressing a public meeting, he said CAA did not take away anyone Indian’s citizenship. “But our millions of brothers, who have come to India in the face of persecution and torture, who have lost their everything, whose women faced dishonour and whose temples and gurdwaras were broken, and faced forcible conversion... they do not have citizenship,” he said.
“Modiji focused on vikas during his five-year tenure. For the next five years Modiji is working on the country’s security. He could deliver what Syama Prasad Mookerjee had yearned for: to make Kashmir an integral part of India. The next issue was constructing the temple. Modiji has already laid a hand on temple construction,” he said.
Trinamool stance led to violence
The home minister accused West Bengal chief minister of supporting CAA’s objectives while in opposition and adopting “appeasement” policies when in office, and said the Trinamool’s stance had led to violence and destruction of railway property in the state. Ahead of the state-wide civic polls scheduled in April, Shah launched a campaign, ‘Aar Noi Anyay (No More Wrongs)’, in a rally at the Shahid Minar grounds in central Kolkata, in an attempt to counter Trinamool’s ‘Didi Ke Bolo’ initiative.
Shah also took potshots at the Trinamool by charging the ruling party with propagating “dynastic rule” although he named neither Mamata Banerjee nor her nephew Abhishek Banerjee who has emerged as the No.2 in Trinamool. Shah said opposition parties were actually instigating riots in the guise of their anti-CAA stance. He launched a no-holds-barred attack on Banerjee, casting aside the restraint he had shown as home minister at the eastern zonal council meeting in Bhubaneswar earlier, when the two came face-to-face.
