New Delhi/ Kolkata: BJP heavyweights, led by Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and party chief Nitin Nabin, on Saturday listed women’s safety, bringing industries back and making West Bengal “free from infiltrators” as top priorities if the party forms government in the state while campaigning for the second and last phase of the Assembly polls.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath also canvassed for the BJP candidates.
The second leg of polling on 142 seats for the West Bengal Assembly elections is scheduled to be held on April 29. Before the campaigning window ends on Monday evening, Shah addressed back-to-back rallies in Jamalpur of the Purba Bardhaman district and Shyampur in Howrah and held two roadshows. Singh addressed voters at Sonarpur Uttar and Goghat.
Besides, Nabin held roadshows in Baranagar, Ashoknagar and Hooghly. He also chaired an “Intellectual Meet” in Howrah. Union minister J.P. Nadda also addressed an “Intellectual Meet” in Bardhaman.
Addressing back-to-back rallies in Jamalpur of the Purba Bardhaman district and Shyampur in Howrah, Shah sharpened the BJP’s campaign around three of the party’s core Bengal planks — the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) for the Matua community, women’s safety, and alleged infiltration from Bangladesh — while projecting the election as a battle to end Mamata Banerjee’s rule.
Shah asserted that the BJP virtually sealed its victory in the Phase-1 polling for the West Bengal Assembly polls itself. He claimed the BJP will win 110 seats in the first leg of polling and promised swift implementation of the CAA, a crackdown on infiltration, and a “fear-free” Bengal for women after coming to power.
“Voting for the first phase is over. In the very first phase itself, the BJP will win 110 seats, and Didi (Bengal CM and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee) will be thrown out of power. Instead of the TMC, the BJP will form the government here,” Shah said.
Given the fact that the politically influential Matua community’s votes are central to the BJP’s electoral calculations in several border districts, Shah accused Banerjee of deliberately blocking the implementation of the CAA and keeping those refugee families in uncertainty for votebank politics.
“Didi does not allow the implementation of the CAA. You form the government of the Lotus (the BJP symbol), and after May 5 the BJP will ensure that every brother and sister of the Matua community receives citizenship,” Shah said.
Shah said that members of the Matua community, many of whom migrated from Bangladesh and remain emotionally tied to the citizenship debate, would no longer have to “live in fear” under a BJP government.
The Union home minister linked infiltration to unemployment and resource scarcity, accusing the TMC leadership of shielding illegal entrants for electoral gains. “Infiltrators in Bengal are eating away at our youths’ jobs and the poor’s rations. Didi and her nephew (TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee) are nurturing infiltrators for the sake of their votebank. After May 5, the BJP government will handpick and drive out every single infiltrator from Bengal,” he said.
Shah’s remarks come amid a sharpened BJP pitch in border districts where questions of identity, refugee status and demographic anxieties remain electorally potent.
Seeking to consolidate Hindu votes further, Mr Shah contrasted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya with controversial remarks allegedly made by former TMC MLA Humayun Kabir.
“On one hand, after 550 years, Modi Ji has built a grand temple of Lord Shri Ram in Ayodhya. On the other hand, Mamata Didi wants her disciple Humayun Kabir to build the Babri Masjid in Bengal. As long as even one BJP worker is alive, we will never allow the Babri Masjid to be built in Bengal,” Shah said.
At Shyampur, Shah also targeted Bengal’s entrenched “syndicate raj”, alleging that ordinary people were forced to pay extortion money for basic construction materials.
“To get cement, you have to pay the syndicate; for bricks, you have to pay the syndicate; for sand, you have to pay the syndicate. The BJP government will throw these syndicate people into the Bay of Bengal,” Shah said.
The Union home minister accused the TMC-backed “goons” of intimidating voters and issued a warning ahead of the second phase of polling.
“Do not step out on April 29. We are only cautioning you now. After May 5, you will be sent behind bars,” Shah said, escalating the BJP’s attack as the campaign enters its decisive stretch.
The Assam Chief Minister, during a press conference in Kolkata, said that the BJP will win over 100 of the 126 seats in Assam and will bag 110 of the 152 seats that went to polls in the first phase of polls in Bengal.
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