West Bengal polls: 'Frustrated' Shah conspiring against TMC leaders, claims Mamata; Swapan Dasgupta resigns from RS

West Bengal Chief Minister  Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday accused Home Minister Amit Shah of hatching a conspiracy to attack TMC leaders ahead of the Assembly elections in the state and wondered whether the Election Commission is working as per his instructions. Claiming that Shah is getting “frustrated” by “poor turnout” at his rallies, the TMC supremo also alleged that the BJP was plotting conspiracies to kill her, referring to her security director Vivek Sahay being removed by the Election Commission after she  sustained injuries in Purba Medinipur’s Nandigram. On the other hand,  Swapan Dasgupta, fielded by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the West Bengal Assembly polls, tendered his resignation as a Rajya Sabha earlier today. Meanwhile, joining the campaign blitzkrieg that the BJP has launched in Bengal, star campaigners Yogi Adityanath, JP Nadda and Rajnath Singh addressed various poll rallies across the state, even as BJP workers continued their protest outside the Hastings office in Kolkata against the selection of candidates. The 294 assembly seats in West Bengal will go to the polls in eight phases beginning on 27 March and the votes will be counted on 2 May. Amit Shah is conspiring to kill me, says Mamata Banerjee At a rally in Bankura district, Banerjee said that Shah was getting frustrated because of the poor turnout at his election rallies, and accused him of hatching a conspiracy to harass the leaders of her party, Trinamool Congress. The West Bengal chief minister was referring to the alleged attack on her in Nandigram last week and repeated her accusation that the BJP was plotting to kill her. “Amit Shah is getting frustrated as there is a poor turnout at his rallies. Instead of running the country, he is sitting in Kolkata and hatching a conspiracy to harass TMC leaders. What do they want? Do they want to kill me? Do they think that they will win this election by killing me? They are wrong,” she said while addressing a rally in Mejia. The chief minister also wondered whether the Election Commission has lost its independence, and alleged that the poll panel is working as per Shah’s instructions. “Is Amit Shah running the EC? He is giving instructions to the EC. What happened to their independence? My director, security (Vivek Sahay) was removed (by EC) as per his instructions,” she alleged. Swapan Dasgupta resigns from RS amid disqualification row Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta on Tuesday resigned from the Upper House of the Parliament as Opposition parties raised questions about him contesting in the West Bengal Assembly elections on Bharatiya Janata Party ticket despite being a nominated MP. Dasgupta tweeted about the development as well, saying that he had resigned to commit himself “totally to the fight for a better Bengal”. “I hope to file my nomination as BJP candidate for the Tarakeshwar Assembly seat in the next few days,” he wrote.

I have resigned from the Rajya Sabha today to commit myself totally to the fight for a better Bengal. I hope to file my nomination as BJP candidate for the Tarakeshwar Assembly seat in the next few days.

— Swapan Dasgupta (@swapan55) March 16, 2021

This comes after Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Monday  pointed out that Dasgupta is a nominated member of the Upper House and said that he must be disqualified for joining the BJP. The BJP has named Dasgupta as a candidate from the Tarakeshwar Assembly constituency in Hooghly district. Dasgupta told  NDTV that the issues between him being a presidential nominee to the Rajya Sabha and him contesting the Bengal polls will be resolved by the time he files his nomination but did not respond to Moitra’s Twitter post. BJP’s ‘rath’ vandalised in Purulia, say reports According to reports, a bus part of BJP’s ‘rath yatra’ was vandalised on Tuesday in West Bengal’s Purulia. The incident reportedly took place soon after Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee’s rally in Manbazar town of Purulia district. The BJP blamed the Trinamool Congress for an attack on its rath yatra at Purulia in West Bengal and alleged that Banerjee was responsible for “violence” in the state as nothing happens there without her nod.

BJP’s rath for the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Samman Yatra, parked in Purulia, vandalised. Driver suffered injuries. BJP national president J P Nadda would be flagging off the yatra anytime now from Kotulpur. TMC won’t be able to do much to stop it!

What is Pishi so scared of? pic.twitter.com/8bD8gAzPUC

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 16, 2021

Union minister Prakash Javadekar hit out at the state’s ruling party and claimed the incidents of violence reflect on the TMC’s frustration as it is losing in the assembly polls, which begins from March 27, there while the BJP is winning. “Trinamool Congress goons attacked the BJP’s which was in honour of Bhim Rao Ambedkar. This is an insult to democracy and Ambedkar… CM Mamata Banerjee is squarely responsible for whatever is happening in West Bengal, this spate of violence,” the BJP leader told reporters. Mamata compelled to recite ‘Chandi Path’ in public because of BJP, claims Adityanath Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath claimed his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee has been forced to take to ‘’Chandi Path’’ publicly and visit temples due to the change in people’s mindset after the BJP came to power at the Centre. He also criticised Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his visits to temples in poll-bound states. Speaking at an election rally at Balarampur in Purulia district, the star campaigner of the saffron party claimed that, a sect of people was created in the country before the BJP-led government assumed power at the Centre in 2014, who believed that even visiting temples would pose a threat to their secular credentials. “A change has come… Even Mamata didi has started visiting temples and taken to ‘’Chandi Path’’. Isn’t this a change? This is a new India. Each and every person has to go to God. “Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also goes to the temple during election time. And a priest had to tell him to sit in a correct posture when he (Rahul Gandhi) went there,” the UP chief minister claimed. The ‘’Chandi Path’’ is one of the most ancient and complete systems of mantra worship of the divine mother goddess in the Hindu tradition. Adityanath also criticised the Trinamool Congress (TMC) dispensation in West Bengal for not implementing various schemes of the Central Government. Urging the people to vote for the BJP in the approaching Assembly polls in West Bengal, Adityanath said, if voted to power, the BJP will punish those behind the “killing of party activists in the state”. Rajnath Singh slams Mamata over law and order situation in Bengal Slamming the TMC government over an alleged slide in the law and order situation, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday the “khela” (game) that will be played in West Bengal after the BJP’s victory in the Assembly election will be that of development and peace. He asserted the BJP will form its government in the state winning more than 200 of the 294 seats. Singh, who was once considered a friend of Mamata Banerjee in the saffron camp, asked what the two-time chief minister has done for the people of the state except for bringing disaster to them. Questioning what the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee means by “khela hobe” (the game will happen), Singh told a public meeting here in West Midnapore district that “the game of development and peace will be played in Bengal”. He said, “asol parivartan” (true change) will usher in on 2 May, the day of the counting of votes for the eight-phase Assembly elections that commence on 27 March. “The BJP will form a government in Bengal with more than 200 seats,” he asserted. In a reference to the insider-outsider debate that the TMC has started, while branding the BJP a party of outsiders, he said the saffron party is the present-day avatar of Jana Sangh, which the son of the soil Syama Prasad Mookerjee had founded. Claiming that the Mamata Banerjee government has not been able to maintain law and order in West Bengal, he claimed, “Go to Uttar Pradesh or any other state where BJP is in power, there is peace.” He said the Narendra Modi government has allocated Rs 25,000 crore in the Union Budget for the development of the highways in West Bengal. “The roads being built in the state are from funds released by the Modi government and not Mamata Banerjee,” he claimed. TMC did nothing for farmers, Adivasis, claims JP Nadda Alleging that the Mamata Banerjee dispensation has not done anything for the welfare of farmers and Adivasis in West Bengal, BJP president JP Nadda on Tuesday claimed that after practising politics of appeasement for years, the TMC supremo has started reciting Sanskrit slokas to assert her Hindu identity. She left several Hindu OBC castes such as Mahishya and Teli out of the reserved category because of her “politics of appeasement”, and the BJP, if voted to power, will take steps to include them, Nadda said while addressing a rally at Kotulpur in Bankura district. Banerjee had won elections in the name of ‘‘Ma, Mati, Manush’’ (Mother, Land and People), Nadda said and alleged that during the last decade, her party has engaged in “torturing women, killing BJP workers, dictatorship, extortion and politics of appeasement”. “I am told that Mamata Banerjee is now doing Chandi Path. But in the last 10 years, you have been engaged in minority appeasement. You have stopped Saraswati Puja in the state and immersion of idols of goddess Durga,” he claimed. Banerjee did Chandi Path (recitation of hymns) at Nandigram, from where she is contesting, at a public meeting on 9 March. “During the stone laying ceremony of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, you stopped people from offering puja in the state,” the BJP president said. Referring to the court verdict in the Batla House encounter case, Nadda also claimed that the TMC supremo had allegedly said in 2008 that it was fake and would quit politics if proved wrong. Nadda asked, “What will she say now?” BJP supporters continue protests over party’s candidate selection Meanwhile, BJP workers from various parts of West Bengal continued their protests on Tuesday outside the party’s state election office in Kolkata over the selection of candidates for the Assembly polls, laying bare the rift between old-timers and new entrants in the saffron party. BJP supporters from Canning West, Magrahat, Kultali, Joynagar and Bishnupur were protesting outside the Hastings office of the party since the morning, often getting involved in scuffles among themselves, forcing the police to intervene. “We want an immediate withdrawal of Arnab Roy’s candidature from the Canning West seat. He joined BJP from Trinamool Congress only five days back and has been given the nomination,” a BJP activist from the constituency said. The protesters claimed that TMC leaders involved in corruption have been given nominations by the BJP. Some of those leaders are also accused of atrocities against BJP members, they said. “We will sit idle and not work for the party’s election campaign if the candidates are not withdrawn immediately,” said Ronny Manna, a long-time BJP worker from Magrahat. A section of the protesters tried to remove the barricades outside the main gate and enter the office compound, following which the police had to step in. With inputs from PTI