Suvendu Adhikari, BJP’s new crowd puller in West Bengal, on Tuesday hinted at the party’s attempt to polarise Hindu votes against TMC in the 2021 State Assembly election.
Adhikari was countering TMC’s election strategist Prashant Kishor’s remark that the Mamata Banerjee-led party has the backing of Bengal’s minority voters and will start the next year’s polls with 30 per cent vote more than the BJP.
“An outsider has come. He is claiming on national channel that ‘we have 30 per cent reserved votes’. So tell us who are those 30 per cent people? And what about the remaining 70? They are with BJP,” Adhikari said at a BJP rally in North 24 Parganas’ Khardah.
For long, the West Bengal’s governing party has been accused of muslim appeasement and polarising the minority community to gain dividends during the election.
Adhikari, a high-profile TMC-turncoat, also highlighted his Brahmin identity at an event Nandigram on the same day.
“I believe in Sanatan Hindu dharma. I belong to a Brahmin family. Every morning I recite Gayatri Mantra after bath. This is our tradition,” the former member of TMC cabinet said.
He added, “But when I was an MP or MLA, I never discriminated people on the basis of their religion or caste. I’ve seen poor as poor and unemployed as unemployed.”
In Adhikari’s statement, the political analysts see BJP’s attempt to schismatise the Hindu voters in West Bengal ahead of the much-talked-about assembly elections.
Meanwhile, Congres Pradesh Committee chief in West Bengal Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury attacked both BJP and TMC for intermingling religion and politics and breaking Bengal’s social fabric.
However, he blamed it on Mamata Banerjee for giving the saffron brigade space to weave its usual brand of communal politics.
“There’s no denying that Mamata Banerjee has sown the seeds of communal politics in Bengal. She has created space for BJP to thrive. Now she’ll have bear the fruits,’ Chowdhury was quoted as saying by Bengali portal The Wall.