“Aap ne humein 18 seats di or humne udhar Ram mandir ki sthapna ki; aap humein 35 seats dijiye, Ram Bangla se sare ghuspaithiyon ko hata denge (You gave us 18 seats and we gave you Ram mandir, you give us 35 seats this time and Ram will drive away all the infiltrators from Bengal),” Shah said while campaigning for Kartik Chandra Pal, the BJP’s candidate in Uttar Dinajpur district’s Raiganj constituency.
Shah said the BJP has set a target of winning 35 seats for the party’s Bengal leaders. He appealed to the voters of Raiganj to help meet the target.
“Didi (TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee), keep your ears open and listen: the people of Bengal have become alert and we will win 30-35 seats from here,” he said.
Shah said the TMC supremo did not want the infiltration issue to be solved. “On one hand you are letting in infiltrators and on the other hand you are opposing the CAA, which is about giving citizenship to Hindu, Jain and Sikh refugees,” he lashed out at Banerjee.
Shah accused Banerjee’s government of depriving people of development. He said the central government wanted to build an All India Institute of Medical Sciences in north Bengal but “Didi did not let it happen”.
Towards the end of the speech that lasted about 20 minutes, he said, “The AIIMS was planned for Raiganj. Mamata didi stopped the BJP. There is no AIIMS in the whole of north Bengal. If Narendra Modi wins 30 seats, a separate AIIMS will be built for north Bengal.”
The AIIMS was to be built in Raiganj. Later it was shifted to Kalyani in Nadia district.
Shah said that if Modi becomes prime minister for a third time, infiltration-related problems will be solved permanently.
Recruitment scam
The Union minister also took a dig at the chief minister over the Calcutta High Court’s cancellation of the recruitment of more than 25,000 candidates following corruption charges.
“Corruption is evident in Bengal. The TMC leaders who had kutcha houses and cycles now own four- or five-storey buildings. It is under Mamata Banerjee’s rule where jobseekers are paying Rs 15 lakh and central agencies recover Rs 50 crore from a minister like Partha Chatterjee. Do you expect Mamata Banerjee’s government to give you jobs? All corruption will be stopped if the BJP comes to power. Can Mamata Banerjee stop all this?” he said.
Shah also criticised Banerjee over the violence and allegations of sexual harassment and land grabbing in Sandeshkhali.
He said, “If you want to stop infiltrators and corruption, there is no alternative to the BJP.”
In the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections, three constituencies in the state—Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat—will vote on Friday (April 26).
The BJP won the Raiganj seat for the first time in 2019, when Deboshree Chowdhury was the candidate.