‘Ab ki baar, phir se haar,’ Trinamool’s ‘rebuttal’ to Amit Shah’s 35-plus seat claim in Bengal

The Trinamool Congress has countered Union Home Minister Amit Shah's ambitious target of the BJP winning 35 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal in 2024 with a “rebuttal”.

“Ab Ki Baar, Phir Se Haar”, a Trinamool statement mentions, as it takes on the veteran leader point by point to put forth its own version.

The party has stated that before the 2021 state elections, the BJP had claimed that it would bag over 200 seats, yet it couldn’t manage a “three-digit score”. “Regarding his claims of 35 seats for BJP from Bengal, it was Shah who had infamously said ‘Abki Baar 200 Paar’ before the 2021 Bengal elections. By the end, BJP could not even muster a three-digit score. The same would follow suit in the upcoming panchayat elections and the subsequent general elections,” the party said.

Read | Unmask corruption, misrule by TMC: Amit Shah to WB BJP

The Trinamool also questioned the home minister’s claim that if people deliver 35 seats in 2024, then the Mamata Banerjee-led government may collapse before “25”, the year–next. “Shah’s claims of toppling government are concerning as being the home minister, he has accepted that a conspiracy is being hatched against Bengal,” the party said.

The Trinamool, on Thursday, had asked Shah to respond to five questions on issues, including “BJP shielding corrupt leaders in Bengal and the central government’s incessant blockade of funds for Bengal, out of sheer political vendetta”.

Countering Shah on Suvendu Adhikari, leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, leading the fight against the state government’s alleged corruption, the Trinamool claimed that Adhikari himself is “embroiled in controversies”, and pointed at the BJP’s ‘washing machine’ politics.

Rising fuel prices, the state government’s functional Swasthya Sathi scheme – like the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat scheme, and Shah’s silence on “why BJP workers were

brandishing guns and swords at these (Ram Navami) rallies?” were the other points the party raised in its counterargument.

Shah’s visit to Birbhum has important implications for the ruling Trinamool. The Trinamool is expected to hold a public meeting in Suri on Sunday, where Shah visited and addressed a gathering on Friday.

Meanwhile, Shah’s two-day visit is expected to boost BJP’s morale in state politics. Sources add that the BJP will continue to highlight (alleged) corruption in the state and reinforce itself in a stronger way for the upcoming rural and Lok Sabha polls. Shah, during his two-day tour, held closed-door meetings with the state’s leaders on Friday, and on Saturday. Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats, and the BJP had won 18 seats in the last parliamentary elections, held in 2019. Shah’s target of 35 seats seems highly ambitious, but given his political foresightedness, such a number could be of concern to the ruling party.

CBI searches in ongoing investigation, two with political allegiance in the fray

The CBI, on Saturday, conducted searches in an ongoing investigation of a case. Six places in Kolkata, Purba Medinipur, and Birbhum districts that belong to a trust’s chairperson, and at the premises of another person in Purba Medinipur, were searched. Incriminating material, including that of primary teachers' recruitment, was recovered during the searches. The allegation is that the two persons acted as conduits – in collecting money – between the other accused and the aspiring candidates, promising them jobs as primary teachers in the recruitment process of 2016.

CBI’s searches that began at the residence of the MLA of Burwan constituency on Friday, continued on Saturday. During the searches, five bags of documents were recovered. Allegedly, the recovered documents with photographs were of the aspiring candidates who had offered bribes estimated to be running in crores of rupees.

Besides the MLA, the trust’s chairperson also had a political allegiance. An investigation is underway in the recruitment scam in Bengal, and several people have been probed so far.