Amit Shah targets TMC, calls Bengal polls crucial for security

Union Home Minister Amit Shah intensified the BJP’s campaign in West Bengal, accusing the TMC government of aiding infiltration and endangering national security, while promising border fencing and electoral roll purification if the BJP comes to power

Kolkata: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday sharpened the BJP’s campaign pitch for the West Bengal Assembly polls, releasing a “charge sheet” against the TMC government and framing the election as a battle not merely for Bengal, but for the country’s security.

Launching a broadside against the Mamata Banerjee government at a press conference here, Shah alleged that after 15 years of TMC rule, West Bengal had become the country’s “principal corridor” for infiltration due to “TMC’s appeasement politics, corruption and political violence”.

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In a state where Banerjee, the TMC supremo, has often capitalised on her image of a besieged streetfighter, Shah sought to puncture that narrative first.

“Mamata Didi has always played the politics of the victim card. Sometimes she talks about her injury, sometimes she abuses the Election Commission. But the people of Bengal now understand Mamata Didi’s victim-card politics very well,” he said.

Hitting out at Banerjee over her opposition to the Election Commission’s SIR exercise, Shah accused her of manufacturing outrage to protect the TMC’s “minority vote bank”.

“The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has taken place in other states too, but nowhere has it been made such an issue. It has been made an issue in Bengal only because Mamata Banerjee wants to protect her vote bank. Abusing constitutional bodies like the Election Commission is not part of Bengali culture,” Shah said.

Claiming that infiltration through Assam had “almost come to an end” after the BJP came to power there, Shah alleged that West Bengal has now emerged as the “last remaining route through which infiltrators enter India and disperse across states”.

“The Bengal election is important not only for Bengal but for the entire country. The security of the entire country is, in a way, linked to the Bengal election,” Shah said.

He claimed that illegal immigration through the borders of West Bengal had become a matter of concern for national security.

In one of his sharpest attacks, Shah said the security of the strategically crucial Siliguri corridor – the narrow strip linking the Northeast to the rest of India – was being endangered “because of the TMC government’s appeasement politics”.

“Due to appeasement and vote-bank politics of the TMC government, the security of the Siliguri corridor is being threatened,” he said.

The home minister alleged that despite repeated requests by the Centre, the Mamata Banerjee government had not provided the land required for fencing along the Bangladesh border.

“The TMC government has not provided land for erecting fences in bordering areas, despite several attempts to convince the state government. This is because the TMC wants to create a vote bank of infiltrators,” he alleged.

In an attempt to turn border fencing into an election promise, Shah said that if the BJP comes to power in Bengal, it would hand over the required land to the Centre within 45 days.

“On May 6, the BJP government will be formed in West Bengal, and within 45 days, the land required for fencing the border will be provided by the Bengal BJP government to the Centre, and we will stop infiltration,” he said.

The BJP leader also indicated that the party would make the purification of electoral rolls a key plank of its campaign.

“I want to ask the people of Bengal – should those infiltrators who have been allowed to stay here be given the right to vote? I want to make it clear from BJP’s side that we will not only remove infiltrators from the voter list, but we will remove each and every illegal immigrant from the country,” he said.

If the BJP’s 2021 campaign revolved around the promise of a “Sonar Bangla”, Shah’s latest pitch seeks to recast the 2026 election in starker, more emotional terms.

“In the coming elections, Bengal has to choose between fear and trust. For the last 15 years, the rule of fear, corruption and appeasement politics has been going on in the state,” he alleged.

“Mamata Banerjee has created a new way of politics by using lies and violence to move her politics forward. The basis of TMC coming to power is lies, fear and violence. But since 2011, the BJP has been fighting against these,” Shah said.