‘Stay alert, PM’: Mamata's ‘Amit Shah-Mir Jafar’ warning for Modi

Mamata Banerjee accused Amit Shah of manipulating the Election Commission into conducting a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in poll-bound states

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday referred to what's perhaps Indian history's infamous case of betrayal — by Mir Jafar in 1757 — to give some cautionary advice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She said home minister Amit Shah, effectively Number 2 in the central government, is “behaving like an acting PM”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah during the recent vice-presidential election at Parliament House in New Delhi.(ANI)

“I want to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to put too much faith in Amit Shah. He may one day become his Mir Jafar,” said the Trinamool Congress supremo at the Kolkata airport after her return from flood-ravaged north Bengal.

Mir Jafar (1691–1765) was a military general who betrayed the ruler Sirajuddaulah, the Nawab of pre-partition Bengal-Bihar, in the Battle of Plassey that took place in present-day Nadia district of West Bengal in 1757. The East India Company's victory in that is seen as the start for eventual British Raj. Mir Jafar remained monarch under patronage for a while after that.

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee with a victim of the recent landslides and floods in Jalpaiguri.(ANI)

Mamata Banerjee accused Amit Shah of manipulating the Election Commission into conducting a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls in poll-bound states. Bihar recently saw one, and now the stage is set of a nationwide revision, which Opposition parties see as the BJP's attempt to delete Muslims and other voters it doesn't desire.

"Tell me, we are currently reeling under natural calamities, heavy rains, celebrating festivals and so on. Can the SIR exercise be completed within a fortnight and can fresh names be uploaded in that period under the current circumstances?" Banerjee argued.

She said it was all “a game played by Amit Shah”. "He is behaving like he is the acting Prime Minister of this country. But the PM is aware (of what he's doing), I am sorry to say," she alleged, as per a PTI report.

"We can request the Prime Minister not to trust Amit Shah always. One day, he will turn out to be your biggest Mir Jafar. Be alert while you have the time, because mornings tell you how the day will be," she said.

"I have seen many governments in my life, but I never came across this kind of arrogant and dictatorial regime," she said of the BJP-led NDA.