Sounding the bugle for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said the Bharatiya Janata Party’s “next big target” is to form a government in the state after winning the elections.

“Lal Bhai (Left Front) had ruled West Bengal for a long time. The Congress had also worked for a long time in the state. The Trinamool Congress also spent a lot of time and their time is up. The only alternative now is the BJP. And for this reason I have come here to appeal to all BJP party workers to constitute a strong party in the state. They should reach out to every home, every city and every village,” Shah said during an event in Kolkata on the occasion of launching of the party’s membership drive programme in the state.

The BJP leader set a target of enrolling one crore party members from the state. He said the next big target for the BJP was winning the State Assembly elections in 2026 with a two-third majority.

Shah asserted that the only way to address the major issues like rampant corruption, illegal infiltration through Bangladesh border and assault against women was to dislodge the Trinamool Congress government and form a BJP government in the state.

The Union Home Minister accused the Mamata Banerjee-led government of aiding “state-sponsored infiltration”. He claimed that incidents of assaults on women in Sandeshkhali and the rape and murder of a junior doctor at state-run RG Kar Hospital in Kolkata were evidence that women are “not safe” in Bengal.

According to Shah, during the UPA rule West Bengal had received around ₹15,000 crore under the MGNREGA scheme, but the NDA government in the Centre has disbursed ₹54,000 crore over the last 10 years for the state. “During the UPA government’s 10 years, Bengal received only ₹2,09,000 crore, whereas Prime Minister Narendra Modi provided ₹7,74,000 crore in the last 10 years,” he informed.

Earlier in the day, the union minister inaugurated a new passenger terminal building and a “Maitri Dwar” in West Bengal’s Petrapole, built at a cost of ₹487 crore by the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI). He said LPAI was making a significant contribution to the country’s development, along with improving relations with neighbours and facilitating the exchange of language, culture, and literature.

Published on October 27, 2024