Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that the BJP will not rest before forming the government in West Bengal with a two-thirds majority. He said that the "war" is not just to remove Mamata Banerjee from power in West Bengal or to strengthen the BJP but to turn the state into 'Sonar Bangla' (Golden Bengal). Shah, while addressing "social media warriors" of the BJP, said that the fight is to bring back the glory of eastern India, to strengthen the country's borders, throw out illegal immigrants, and give citizenship under the CAA to refugees.
"We will not rest before forming the government in West Bengal with a two-thirds majority. I know that the BJP will form the government in the state with more than 200 seats," he said, adding that he is an optimistic man whose words have often come true with the "grace of god". The Union home minister said that it will be ensured that every voter can freely exercise his/her franchise during the upcoming state assembly elections due in April-May.
The Trinamool Congress on Saturday appealed to the Left Front-Congress alliance not to invite the "bigger evil" BJP to settle scores with it in the poll-bound state. The Left and Congress, however, rejected the appeal outright and termed TMC as the "B team" of the saffron camp in Bengal. This is the second time in the last one month that TMC has appealed to the Left and Congress to put up an united fight against BJP in the coming assembly polls in the state. BJP has expressed elation over the proposal and said it proves that the saffron party is the only alternative to TMC in the state.
Shah, known to be the master strategist of the saffron party, said that winning the West Bengal polls will pave the way for electoral successes in Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the BJP's flag will fly high in the entire country. He set a target for the BJP's social media team to reach out to two crore of the 10 crore population of West Bengal by propagating the party's messages and the Centre's achievements, saying it will ensure that almost all the families in the state will be reached through social media.
Shah said that the Left Front, Congress, TMC or the "party from Furfura Sharif" (indicating at newly floated Indian Secular Front) cannot bring West Bengal back on the path of development and it can only be ensured by the BJP. "Only the BJP has the power to throw the 'tukde tukde gang' into the Bay of Bengal. The tukde tukde gangs that have come up from West Bengal to JNU should also be brought to the notice of the people of the state," he said. Calling on the volunteers to strategise their campaign with exuberance, Shah, who inaugurated the party's Bengali website 'Modipara.com', asked them to form four groups for reaching out to people through social media.
He said that social media teams be divided into four sections—political analysis, making content with an eye on political satire, taking the content to the people and receiving feedback. Shah said that the religious and cultural consciousness and the soul of West Bengal have to be awakened. He asked the social media volunteers to raise the issue of Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja allegedly not being allowed in the state due to the TMC's "appeasement politics". "If Durga visarjan is not held in West Bengal, will it take place in Pakistan?" he said.
He called on creating WhatsApp groups down to the booth-level to spread the party's messages. "In Uttar Pradesh, we succeeded in winning 300 seats by spreading the messages to the people through WhatsApp groups," he said.
-Inputs from PTI