Farmers Movement Archive

On West Bengal visit, BJP chief tours Mamata Banerjee’s Bhowanipore turf

KOLKATA: BJP national president J P Nadda on Wednesday charged chief minister Mamata Banerjee with “intolerance and appeasement” and accused her of practising “dynastic politics”, on the first day of his two-day Bengal visit. He told party workers that BJP would dethrone the Trinamool government in the 2021 assembly polls. Nadda later participated in a public outreach programme in Banerjee’s home constituency Bhowanipore. “Intolerance thy name is Mamata,” Nadda said on Wednesday, giving it back to Trinamool over the allegation it had brought against BJP. Citing the difference between the two parties, Nadda said: “TMC has become a family party. But for BJP, the party is a family. It’s our ideology that the karyalay is where the family works and it’s not a leader’s house.” A group of youths, in a snap demonstration outside the BJP office at Hastings in Kolkata, shouted “J P Nadda murdabad, BJP murdabad” slogans, protesting the Centre’s farm laws and trying to show black flags to the BJP leader while he was coming to the party office. Nadda dwelt at length on “rising intolerance” in Bengal, pointing to attacks on BJP workers in the state. “Violence, corruption and nepotism have taken centrestage in West Bengal. A worker was killed this morning and another was killed yesterday. At least 130 workers were killed in political violence. This clearly shows that political activity has come to a halt in the state and the ruling party is busy in politicizing institutions. They (Trinamool) are trying to silence people,” he said. “We have come a long way from 4% votes to 40% votes in 2019. In 2021, we will cross 200 seats. Bihar elections have shown that people are with Modiji and they have blessed us in the state proving experts wrong…we will dethrone the (Trinamool) government in 2021,” the BJP president said. Nadda then hit out at the CM over “minority appeasement”. He said: “She allows Eid. We have nothing against it. We are for Eid celebrations. But why did she impose lockdown on Ram Mandir foundation day?” Nadda then participated in the party’s ‘Aar Noi Onnyay’ programme, and distributed leaflets to a household in Banerjee’s home constituency Bhowanipore. BJP had led by 3,168 votes from this constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, three years after Banerjee won it by a margin of close to 25,000 votes in the 2016 assembly polls. BJP had finished the race at third, after Congress-Left candidate Deepa Das Munshi. Nadda reminded party workers that Bhowanipore was home to Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee. “If Pakistan had divided India during Partition, Mookerjee divided Pakistan and helped West Bengal remain with India,” the BJP leader said, recalling Bengal’s “special link” with BJP. Before holding a closed-door meeting at Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) with Bengal BJP office-bearers on Wednesday evening, Nadda held a meeting at Bhasha Parishad to take stock of south Kolkata assembly seats, particularly Bhowanipore and Jadavpur, and gave advice on strengthening booth-level activities.

The Times of India

2020-12-10

Kolkata