Mamata's minority appeasement harming national security: Lekhi

BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi on Wednesday accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of practising a dangerous form of appeasement politics and harming the cause of national security by providing shelter to members of fundamentalist groups in the state.

"The Chief Minister does not realise that she is harming the cause of national security, not just law and order in her state. As per a particular report, 720 criminals of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Bangladesh), an Islamic fundamentalist organisation, who do not find place in Bangladesh, are crossing over to this state and they are given space here. Bangladesh government is saying this," Lekhi, the party's national spokesperson, said at the India Today conclave East here.

She also held Banerjee and her government responsible for a number of riot like situations in the Bengal during the Trinamool Congress rule.

"The riots need to be controlked by the state government as law and order situation is a state subject. On the contrary, there is Muslim vote bank appeasement in the state and the state government including the chief minister is responsible," she claimed.

Supporting Lekhi, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who was also present at the discussion, said the state government is trying to resist central agency probes into the cases of communal violence or terrorism by forcefully handing the investigation to state CID.

"The state government is trying to prevent the cases or riots from being probed by a central agency. Starting from communal clashes in Kaliachak and Basirhat to the Khagragarh blast, they are putting forward the state CID and resisting a CBI inquiry. If they want the truth to come out why are they making this attempt?" he asked.

Lekhi, BJP's Lok Sabha MP from New Delhi, said the Bengal government has a tendency of baselesly blaming the BJP in case of any law and order situation in the state.

"In the Ranaghat nun rape case, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee started blaming the BJP from the beginning but when the perpetrators were arrestd it was found they were all Bangladeshi residents. This is a dangerous brand of politics practised by the Bengal government," she alleged.

Lekhi also took on Banerjee over her statement that the BJP-led Central government was scaring away industrialists from the state, saying that the extortion tax that industrialists have to pay in Bengal is public knowledge.

About the issue of delay in the winter session of parliament due to the upcoming elections, Lekhi claimed the whole issue was being blown out of proportion by the opposition parties and said this has happened even during the reign of other parties at the centre.

--IANS

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