Prepare to be unseated in 2026, Suvendhu tells Mamata; parties ramp up rhetoric
'Trinamool has challenged us by declaring that they will win more seats in 2026. I am also challenging them — I defeated you in Nandigram in 2021; I will make you the former Chief Minister in 2026,' Mr. Adhikari said, directing his remark at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The BJP MLA staged a protest march to Uttarkanya, the branch secretariat of the West Bengal Government in Siliguri, on Monday, the same day that Trinamool supremo Ms. Banerjee spelled out the party's political line at the party's 33rd Martyrs' Day event in Dharmatala, Central Kolkata.
Demands revision of poll rolls
'We want Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list here, like in Bihar. Everyone can rest assured that the tortured Hindus who have come from Bangladesh are refugees, not infiltrators… But we will not allow even one Rohingya Muslim or Bangladeshi Muslim to remain on the voters' lists,' Mr. Adhikari said during the programme.
The Chief Minister, in her address on Monday, stated that 40 lakh voters have been disenfranchised in Bihar due to SIR, and that if the same is done in West Bengal, massive agitations and gherao programmes will be conducted.
Mr. Adhikari also took a jab at Trinamool, claiming that the ruling dispensation had questioned the religious identity of the Rajbanshi and Matua communities of West Bengal, which constitute a large portion of the State's scheduled caste population.
The two communities have been a source of political contention between the two parties and are expected to exert significant electoral influence in the upcoming Assembly polls. At the Trinamool rally at Dharmatala, Ms. Banerjee brought on stage Uttam Kumar Brajabashi, the 55-year-old Rajbanshi farmer from Coochbehar, who had received an NRC notice from the Assam Foreigners Tribunal.
'The Chief Minister claims she has given everyone employment in this State. Then why are there 60 lakh migrant workers from West Bengal? Why are 2 crore 15 lakh people unemployed? Why is there no industry? She has no answers,' Mr. Adhikari said at the rally.
He also announced that he will visit Cooch Behar on August 4.
BJP here to stay
Meanwhile, the recently appointed State president of the BJP, Samik Bhattacharya, said on Monday that the Chief Minister will 'not see India or the Central government be free of the BJP in her lifetime.'
'The Trinamool is attacking the Bengali language. They are attacking Rabindranath Tagore, Vande Mataram, and the works of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. They are trying to erase the history of West Bengal,' Mr. Bhattacharya claimed.
At Kharagpur in West Bengal's Paschim Medinipur, former BJP MLA Dilip Ghosh organised a separate party programme 'to pay tribute to our martyred party workers who lost their lives to political violence.'
The Trinamool Congress has been observing Martyrs' Day in Central Kolkata on July 21 with a massive rally for over two decades to pay tribute to 13 people killed in police firing during an agitation by the West Bengal Youth Congress on 21 July 1993.
'I believe this is Trinamool's final Martyrs' Day programme. Next year, Trinamool itself will get martyred. They will not be able to observe this day next year,' Mr. Ghosh said.
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