KOLKATA: Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Tuesday claimed that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had dialled Union Home Minister Amit Shah after the Election Commission revoked TMC’s national party status to request him to repeal the decision.
Adhikari’s remarks drew a sharp retort from Bengal’s ruling party, which dubbed the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly as a ”habitual liar”.
The EC withdrew the national party status of the TMC, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) last week.
”Yesterday, we saw how Mamata Banerjee had demanded the resignation of Amit Shah. But, after the EC revoked the national party status, she had repeatedly called him to request that the decision be repealed. It, however, did not yield any result,” Adhikari said, while addressing a rally at Singur in Hooghly district.
He also reiterated that the Trinamool Congress would cease to be even a state party in future.
Reacting to Adhikari’s comment, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh asserted there is not even an iota of truth in it. “Suvendu Adhikari is a habitual liar. We have seen how he has earlier brazenly lied about several political developments. His remarks are baseless and don’t have an iota of truth. Having a national party status or not is notional. It is not going to impact the growth of the TMC,” Ghosh said.
Banerjee had on Monday slammed Shah for ”conspiring to topple” her government before its natural term in office ended, following his remarks last week at a rally, where he claimed that the TMC government in Bengal would not survive beyond 2025 if the BJP wins 35 seats in next year’s Lok Sabha polls.
The Mamata Banerjee government, elected for the third consecutive term in 2021 with a massive majority, is scheduled to complete its third term in 2026.
While addressing the rally in Singur, Adhikari also blamed Banerjee for ruining the prospects of industrialisation in the state by driving out the Tatas from the area when she was an opposition leader.
”The TMC destroyed the future of the youths to reap political dividends. Because of the Singur agitation, in the last 12 years of the TMC government, not a single major industrial unit has come up in the state,” he claimed.
The TMC quickly hit back, accusing Adhikari of ”double standards” as he was then a part of the anti-land acquisition movement.
”The people of Bengal know the truth; they can’t be misguided. Why is Suvendu Adhikari now saying such things? Why was he silent when he was in the TMC and derived benefits from the party? He, too, was part of the anti-land acquisition movement,” Ghosh said.
Banerjee had led the movement against the erstwhile Left Front government’s acquisition of arable land in Nandigram and Singur for industrialisation. Adhikari was then her trusted lieutenant in Nandigram.
He joined the BJP in December 2020, months ahead of the 2021 assembly polls.
Singur — once known for multiple crop farming — hogged the limelight after Tata Motors set its sight on the area to build its cheapest car manufacturing unit in 2006. Leading from the front, then opposition leader Mamata Banerjee had called for a 26-day hunger strike, demanding the return of 347 acres, which was allegedly forcibly acquired.
The Tatas eventually moved out of Singur in 2008.
Source: Press Trust of India
