BJP warns Mamata it would take Bengal government to task

Observing that West Bengal was heading the Uttar Pradesh way where "goonda raj and vote-bank politics hold sway", the BJP Sunday asserted it will take the Trinamool Congress government to task.

Addressing media persons after the BJP's two-day-long state committee meeting here, the party's state co-in-charge Siddarth Nath Singh said the Trinamool Congress was conspiring with the Congress and the CPI-M to halt his party's rise in the state.

"Bengal is steadily heading the UP way where goonda raj and vote-bank politics hold sway. Unfortunately, neither the Trinamool nor the Samajwadi Party are willing to learn lessons from the Congress which was decimated in the Lok Sabha election.

"It's a wrong impression that the BJP is cosying up to the Trinamool, in fact we are daggers drawn. We will take Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to task if the Trinamool doesn't mend its ways or Bengal is denied its share of development," he said.

The BJP leader said a central delegation of the party will visit Illambazar in Birbhum district where one of its activist was killed and several others injured in an attack, allegedly by the Trinamool Saturday.

Spelling out the party's plan for the 2016 assembly polls, he claimed that the BJP has performed exceedingly well in the general election in Bengal, which has made the state government nervous.

"We took lead in 24 assembly segments and stood second in another 26. Besides, our vote share was quite high in another 100. Naturally, Mamata Banerjee is nervous and agitated because Trinamool lost ground to BJP," the BJP leader said.

He claimed that Trinamool's 39 percent vote share was 10 percent more due to rigging and violence the party activists unleashed during the polls.

"Their traditional vote-bank -- the minorities -- are steadily heading towards BJP, so the Trinamool is conspiring with the CPI-M and Congress to stoke communal unrest.

"Much like Narendra Modi fulfilled his vow of making India Congress-free, the BJP is determined to free Bengal of Trinamool," he added.