Shah promises Bengal a BJP chief minister 'from the soil'

Through the day, the Union he minister and others in his entourage kept trying to portray Mamata as a 'narrow-minded regionalist'

Amit Shah after paying homage to Swami Vivekananda in Calcutta on Saturd: Pradip Sanyal

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Meghdeep Bhattacharyya   |   TT   |   Calcutta   |  20.12.20 : Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday promised Bengal a BJP chief minister “from the soil” to counter Mamata Banerjee’s relentless attacks against them for allegedly being the bohiragawto (outsider) trying to deprive the bhumiputro (son of the soil).

“I am telling Mamata Banerjee directly. The task of defeating you (Mamata) will be undertaken by Bengali workers of the BJP… and after defeating you, the BJP’s chief minister will also be someone from this soil,” said Shah in television interviews on the sidelines of his Midnapore events.

Through the day, Shah and others in his entourage — including latest Trinamul turncoat Suvendu Adhikari — kept trying to portray Mamata as a “narrow-minded regionalist” to offset her offensive of how the bohiragawto from Gujarat would rule Bengal if the BJP  came to power .

Shah’s visit, in the wake of a few gaffes amid the party’s desperate bid to establish its connect with Bengali culture and tradition, began with a visit to Swami Vivekananda’s north Calcutta residence, and included prayers at the Siddheshwari and Mahamaya Devi temples and floral tributes to a Khudiram Bose statue in Midnapore.

At every stop, he addressed the bohiragawto issue.

“I want to say this to those practising narrow politics in the state… Khudiram Bose as much the nation’s pride as he is of Bengal,” said Shah at Midnapore, garlanding the freedom fighter’s statue at his ancestral home. “At the age of just 18, the immensely valiant youth fought the British empire and showed exemplary courage in kissing the noose, holding the (Bhagvad) Gita.”

A Trinamul MP pointed out Shah could not refrain from bringing up the Hindu scriptural element. “I have never heard them say how, till his execution, Bhagat Singh had been reading Reminiscences of Lenin, authored by German Marxist Clara Zetkin…,” the MP said.

Shah also brought up the martyrdom of Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan and Roshan Singh, three other icons of the freedom struggle, who were hanged on this day in 1927. “The immortal heroes who fought for our Independence could not even imagine such petty politics of regionalism,” he said.

The itinerary of the Union home minister’s Bengal tour this time was carefully drawn up to include visits to places associated with three of the state’s leading icons.

On Sunday, he is scheduled to spend a lot of time at Visva-Bharati set up by Rabindranath Tagore.

“Earlier this month, our social media cell committed a regrettable faux pas when they tweeted that Tagore was born at Visva-Bharati and had wrongly attributed it to our national president J.P. Nadda. Mamata made a major issue of it. We believe Amitji’s Visva-Bharati trip will undo the damage,” said a state BJP leader.

He admitted the party was yet to recover from the damage from incidents such as the demolition of Bengal Renaissance stalwart Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar’s bust last year or the incorrect identification of an anonymous statue as that of tribal icon Birsa Munda last month.

On Friday, a display board welcoming Shah to Bolpur and Santiniketan had triggered protests as it had placed a sketch of Tagore below that of the Union home minister.

Sources in the BJP hoped the increasing inclusion of prominent Bengali faces in the state leadership, such as Suvendu Adhikari, will help the party in neutralising the outsider perception.

In his debut address after joining the BJP, Adhikari also took the bohiragawto bull by the horns for his new political bosses.

“The BJP, the largest political party in the world, talks of nationalism and pluralism… Trinamul talks of outsiders to divide the people. How dare they call the likes of Amit Shah and Kailash Vijayvargiya outsiders?” asked the Trinamul turncoat.

“All of us are Indians first, then Bengalis,” he added.

Sources in his party said that unsure of how the “outsider” label would impact the BJP electorally in the state polls, the likes of Shah, Nadda and Modi will leave “no stone unturned” to try and convince the people of the state that the party does not exclusively represent the Sangh parivar’s Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan vision now.

For instance, every social media post from or regarding Shah was put out in Bengali first.

“In a state where religion-based minority appeasement has been key to ascending to power, we are trying to appease the language-based majority — the Bengalis,” said a state unit functionary.

“We do not expect minority votes (from a third of the state’s electorate) to come to us. If a chunk of Hindu votes are denied to us over this Bengali sentiment, our chances (of winning the Assembly polls) could be seriously dented.”