The BJP on Wednesday criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for allegedly threatening Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is on a visit to the state, and alleged that she has been running a "tanasahi" (dictatorship).
Addressing a press conference Bhubaneswar, BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that Banerjee, while addressing a public meeting in Bankura district, threatened the Home Minister of India that she "allowed" him to come out of the hotel where he was staying in Kolkata.
Patra said, “Mamata Banerjee has threatened the Home Minister of India in words which cannot even be thought of. We have seen it. She said that you (Shah) are hiding in a hotel. If we want, you cannot step out of the hotel. You are lucky that we allowed you to come out of the hotel.”
Claiming that she had done this "for the sake of infiltrators", he asserted that it is not only a threat to the Union home minister, but also to the entire population of the country.
"You (Banerjee) are not just threatening Amit Shah; you are threatening India," Patra said, adding that this is not the first time that such an incident has happened in West Bengal.
"Our party president JP Nadda’s cavalcade was attacked during the previous elections by infiltrators,” the Puri MP said.
Patra asserted that Shah has raised issues such as corruption, injustice, and especially the politics surrounding infiltrators in West Bengal.
He also alleged that around 300 BJP activists were killed in West Bengal by goons of the TMC, while 3,000 others had to flee their homes.
"This is Hitler-sahi and tanasahi,” Patra alleged. “There have been attacks on democracy in Bengal. This is happening in a state which led the country all along. Bengal is now destroyed by Mamata Banerjee,” he said.
Patra alleged that the Trinamool Congress supremo has a problem with the names of infiltrators being removed from the electoral rolls.
“Mamata Banerjee is threatening the Home Minister of the country for the sake of infiltrators,” he alleged.
BJP will form a government with a two-thirds majority in West Bengal, and the party is preparing for that, he said.
Patra said, “West Bengal is for Indians and Bengalis, and not for infiltrators. Mamata Banerjee is not allotting land for fencing on the (international) border. She is more worried about infiltrators and Rohingyas than the state. Tunnels are constructed to bring infiltrators, and efforts are made to give them recognition. Once the BJP forms the government, each infiltrator would be identified and evicted.”
Noting that Bengal has the history of leading the country on several fronts, Patra alleged that the state’s economy, industrialisation and development has suffered a lot due to the “appeasement” politics of Banerjee.