For the first time, this polling season Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were campaigning in Bengal on the same day.
Drawing a cricket analogy, Prime Minister Modi said on Monday the people of Bengal have hit so many fours and sixes in the first four phases of the Assembly polls that the BJP has already completed its century and the TMC is on course to being wiped out.
He came down hard on chief minister Mamata Banerjee, accusing her of instigating people against Central forces on election duty in the state. The Prime Minister also launched a blistering attack on Banerjee, saying she did not care to express regret after a “leader very close to her” called Scheduled Castes “beggars”. “People of Bengal hit so many fours and sixes that BJP has already completed a century (of seats) in the first 4 phases of Assembly polls. They have wiped out the TMC in half the match (aadha mein poora saaf). “People of Bengal have clean bowled Didi in Nandigram and have asked her entire team to leave the field,” he told an election rally in Bardhaman.
Seeking to allay fears created among the people of the hills by TMC’s “lies”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah asserted on Monday that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will have no impact on the Gorkhas. Shah, during an address after a roadshow in Kalimpong, said as long as the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is there at the Centre, no Gorkha will be harmed.
“NRC has not yet been implemented, but whenever it is done, not a single Gorkha will be asked to leave,” the senior BJP leader said.
“The Trinamul Congress is lying about the possible fallout of NRC on the Gorkhas to create fear among them,” he said.
Noting that Darjeeling and Kalimpong have suffered atrocities for long, Shah claimed in 1986, over 1,200 Gorkhas lost their lives, but they did not get justice.
The home minister also alleged that the Mamata Banerjee government has also been responsible for the death of many Gorkhas in recent times.
~With inputs from PTI~