Top leaders of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made their push over the weekend, with just two days left before the campaign period for the second phase of West Bengal’s Assembly polls comes to an end.
TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee, addressing an election meeting in Bhabanipur, said, “We have already crossed 100 seats in the first phase. Elections in the remaining 142 seats will be held next week. If you all vote for us, we will get two-third majority.”
Union home minister Amit Shah hit back while addressing a rally at Jamalpur in East Midnapore. “The first phase of the election has just been held. Do you want to know what would be the result? The BJP will win 110 seats and wipe out the Mamata Banerjee-regime. The BJP will form the government,” he said.
Polling for 152 of the 294 seats in the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections concluded on Thursday.
Banerjee on Saturday held four rallies and two road shows, including one in Bhabanipur from where she is contesting.
Banerjee has won the Bhabanipur seat, which will see voting in the second phase on Wednesday, three times in a row. The BJP, meanwhile, has fielded its heavyweight candidate Suvendu Adhikari from Bhabanipur to challenge the chief minister in her own constituency. In 2021, Adhikari defeated Banerjee in Nandigram by 1,956 votes.
“Have you seen how the BJP has gone crazy? They are under huge pressure. Today they have reportedly engaged 50 choppers in the sky. We are finding it difficult to arrange even three helicopters. They have brought in 19 chief ministers and Union ministers. They deployed CAPF and engaged all the investigating agencies. They will not be able to do anything to me in Bhabanipur,” Banerjee said while addressing a rally in Hooghly district.
Banerjee also threatened to move the court over Shah’s recent post on X warning the ‘goons’ of CM Mamata Banerjee not to come out in the second phase of polling.
“He (Shah) has threatened to hang people upside down to straighten them up. He is speaking of violence. How can he say this on a public platform? This is crime. I know that no action would be taken against them. But I would ask lawyers to move the court against this,” Banerjee said.
Meanwhile, Shah held two public meetings and two road shows on Saturday.
Addressing a rally at Jamalpur in East Midnapore, Shah said, “The first phase of the election has just been held. Do you want to know what would be the result? The BJP will win 110 seats and wipe out the Mamata Banerjee-regime. The BJP will form the government.”
He alleged that women were the worst sufferers of the TMC’s atrocities in the last 15 years, while raking up cases of crime against women such as the rape and murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Hospital, the rape of a student in a law college in south Kolkata, and alleged atrocities against women at Sandeshkhali.
“Being a woman chief minister, Mamata failed to ensure safety and security of women in the state,” he said, attacking the TMC government.
“Didi did not allow the implementation of the CAA law. You form the government of the lotus (BJP’s poll symbol), and after May 5, the BJP government will ensure that every brother and sister of the Matua community receives citizenship,” he added.
Several BJP leaders, including Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, also held rallies.
“It would not be surprising if the BJP won over 200 seats in West Bengal. The around 93 per cent voter turnout in phase 1 showed that there is no atmosphere of fear which had earlier prevented people from openly backing the BJP,” Sarma said while addressing a press conference in Kolkata.
Adityanath, addressing a rally in North 24 Parganas, said, “As 150 years of Vande Mataram are being completed, I believe Bengal will be freed from TMC, Congress and Communists–there is no doubt about it.”
