'Ab ki baar, phir se haar': TMC after Amit Shah targets 35 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal

Kolkata: A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah urged West Bengal to give 35 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats to BJP, ruling Trinamool Congress said on Saturday that for BJP, it will be ‘Ab ki baar, phir se haar’ (It will be a defeat again).

“It was Shah who had infamously said “abki ki kaar 200 paar” before the 2021 West Bengal election. But the BJP failed to get a three-digit number. It will be a repeat follow in the upcoming panchayat election and the 2024 General Election. Shah’s claims of toppling the government are serious as being the home Minister, he has accepted that a conspiracy is being hatched against Bengal,” a statement said.

“At his public meeting in Birbhum, Shah said the Bengal government was blocking Ram Navami processions. But he remained mum on why BJP workers were brandishing guns and swords in these rallies? Shah was also silent on BJP’s links with accused Sumit Shaw, arrested by Howrah police from Bihar’s Munger,” it read.

BJP’s closed-door meeting

Before leaving West Bengal, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a closed-door party meeting at a hotel in New Town. Sources said Shah asked the Bengal party unit to strengthen their organisation before the polls.

“Shah asked the Bengal BJP leaders to strengthen the organisation at the grassroot level and asked everyone to fight against the Trinamool unitedly. He (Shah) also asked the leaders to inform people of the corruption and the misrule of the Trinamool government,” a BJP said.

CBI raids TMC netas’ houses

After Shah called for the intensified fight against the ruling TMC, the CBI on Saturday raided houses of Trinamool leaders in the recruitment scam.

According to the statement by the central agency, “The searches, which started on Friday evening at the residence of Jiban Krishna Saha, MLA from the Burwan constituency, was under progress. Yesterday, while conducting the searches, 5 bags of documents were recovered from bushes adjacent to the boundary wall of his residence. The alleged documents affixed with photographs of aspiring candidates, who had deposited the bribe, were recovered. It was alleged the bribe collected from the candidates was estimated to be running into crores of rupees.”

Apart from Saha, houses of other TMC leaders were raided.