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When Bengal polls end, Mamata too will raise Jai Shri Ram slogans: Amit Shah
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had declined to speak at an official event on January 23 where “Jai Shri Ram” slogans were raised in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
By the time the West Bengal assembly election ends, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee will also start raising Jai Shri Ram slogans, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Thursday.
“If not in West Bengal, where will you raise Jai Sri Ram slogan? Will you raise it in Pakistan? Mamata didi has problem with this slogan because she wants to appease a particular community to garner votes. I can assure you that by the time elections end, Mamata didi will also start raising Jai Shri Ram slogans,” said Shah, while speaking at a public rally in Cooch Behar district in north Bengal.
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On January 23, the chief minister of West Bengal had refused to speak at an official event organised to celebrate the 124th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in Kolkata where “Jai Shri Ram” slogans were raised in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Shah, while mounting an attack on the ruling TMC government, branded Banerjee as a failed chief minister and administrator.
“This year BJP will fight the elections with full power. No one will dare to influence the elections. The people of Bengal will have to choose between Modi’s development model and Banerjee’s destructive model,” Shah said while adding that the TMC chief only thinks of how to make her nephew the state’s next chief minister.
The BJP has emerged as the primary opponent of the ruling TMC in West Bengal where elections are due in March-April. Buoyed by its victory in 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2019, the BJP is now aiming to win more than 200 of the 294 assembly seats.
“This year, Bengal elections will be historic, wherein booth-centric party workers of the BJP will fight riot-centric goons backed by the TMC. But Mamata won’t be able to win this time,” Shah said, raising slogans in Bengali “chalo paltai” (let’s change).
Shah launched the BJP’s fourth parivartan rath yatra from Cooch Behar during his one-day whirlwind tour of the poll-bound state.
On Wednesday, Banerjee had attacked the BJP saying that the BJP’s rath yatras were disrespecting Hindu Ggods and goddesses. “It is adharma in the name of dharma,” she had said.
Attacking the TMC on the issue of infiltration from Cooch Behar, a border district, Shah said: “This parivartan yatra is not aimed to change the chief minister or to bring in a BJP minister or MLA. It is aimed at bringing to the fore the present situation in Bengal. This is a yatra to stop infiltration, unemployment, corruption, bomb blasts and bring in development and make the state sonar bangla (golden Bengal).”
