A senior BJP leader from Bengal stated on Thursday that there are 26 or more people in the race for the prime minister’s post in his party’s opposing I.N.D.I.A bloc. Drawing a parallel with Nehru and Jinnah, he claimed that there were "two contenders" then as well for the top post, and "the country was divided".
Suvendu Adhikari, BJP MLA and Leader of the Opposition in the state legislative assembly, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a party workers' meeting in Purulia, claiming that the anti-BJP alliance has “ended.”
Before the elections were to take place for the states last month, the alliance had termed the voting as a “semi-final” and had raised the issue of another caste census, Adhikari said.
“The people of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan finished the alliance. This is a half-hearted alliance that doesn't even have a common minimum programme. We have Narendra Modi,” Adhikari said.
He claimed that in post-Independence India, there were two contenders for the PM's post, Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, "which led to the division of the country into two parts".
“Now, there are 26 to 28 people in the race. We are progeny of Bharat. We aren’t ready to have the country divided into 26 parts. There will be one country,” Adhikari asserted.
The BJP leader asserted that the country witnessed the “storm” of PM Modi in the state elections. “In the next Lok Sabha elections, people will see Modiji’s tsunami,” he claimed, adding, "Under no circumstance are people willing to accept that India’s situation becomes similar to that of Ukraine or like the situation in Israel-Palestine-Gaza".
Meanwhile, Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumdar met Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with another BJP MP from the state. Majumdar stated on X that the discussion was “about Sonar Bangla.” A BJP source added that a “tentative” visit of Shah to Bengal is likely in the near future, though there’s no official confirmation.
Published 21 December 2023, 15:40 IST