Day after Amit Shah’s visit to Bengal, TMC, BJP taunt each other

The political temperature in Bengal shot up a few degrees on Saturday with the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party attacking each other a day after Union home minister Amit Shah returned from a two-day visit.

While the TMC questioned the credentials of Jay Shah, son of the Union home minister, who holds the post of the secretary of Board of Control for Cricket in India, the BJP started a twitter campaign with the hashtag #BanglarPappuDiwas (Bengal’s Pappu Day) tagging Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

Shah had come on a two-day visit to Bengal to take stock of the party’s organisational preparedness ahead of the crucial 2021 Bengal assembly elections. During his many interactions with the media and BHP workers Shah hit out at the TMC over its alleged minority appeasement and deteriorating law and order, demanded a white paper on political killings and urged voters to give the BJP a chance to run West Bengal.

“What credentials Jay Shah has to suddenly hold one of India’s top administrative cricket posts? Or what magic formula Jay Shah had to become BCCI secretary out of nowhere?” the TMC said in a statement, released after Shah’s visit. The statement also accused Shah of playing dirty politics.

The BJP, however, hit out and launched a counter-offensive against Abhishek Banerjee with the party’s IT cell starting a Twitter campaign targeting the chief minister’s nephew.

“India has seen how BJP’s development agenda and positivity scores over dynasty politics nationally. Bengal can’t afford to get mired in the same incompetence of family politics. Bengal will reject @abhishekAITC brand of siphoning public money and politics of fear. #BanglarPappuDiwas,” tweeted Kailash Vijayvargiya, BJP’s national general secretary.

After the BJP’s impressive performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in which the party won 18 out of the 42 seats, the BJP is now eyeing the West Bengal assembly. On October 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the people of Bengal on the occasion of Durga Sasthi virtually sounding the poll bugle.

Shah’s visit seemed to have also temporarily ended some of the infighting in the Bengal unit of the BJP.

In the last week of October, West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh dissolved all the district committees of the BJPs Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the state youth front headed by Lok Sabha member Saumitra Khan. Later, an aggrieved Khan left the BJYM WhatsApp group, saying he would resign from the BJP. He, however, returned to the group after a few hours and uploaded a video message on his Twitter handle. The party’s central leaders had to intervene.

On Saturday, however, a day after Shah’s visit, the BJP came up with a fresh list of BJYM district presidents.

“There aren’t any differences. A new list of BJYM district presidents have been announced with the permission of central leadership. This is final,” said a senior BJP leader.

While the BJP has already made some organisational changes in its Bengal unit and central leaders want the state unit to hit the road with full steam and subsequently intensify campaign for the assembly polls due in about five months, Shah during his visit is known to have laid out detailed plans and guidelines on how to reach the finish line. The entire movement will be monitored from Delhi, a senior BJP leader said.

On Saturday both the BJP and the TMC announced new members who joined their parties. While the BJP said that two former local CPI (M) leaders joined the party, the TMC said that some members of the civil society including former police officers and professors signed up for them.