KOLKATA: The West Bengal BJP is in a fix over party president Amit Shah pitching for Hindi and is unable to openly support the statement fearing that it might dent the party's increasing mass base in Bengal.
The state BJP unit is apprehensive that the issue might snowball into a major political issue as Trinamool Congress went hammer and tongs on Shah's Hindi Divas tweet accusing the saffron party of pushing its policy of imposing Hindi, sources in it said.
Shah had on Saturday pitched for a common language for the country and said as Hindi is spoken the most it can unite the whole country.
"Actually we can neither openly vouch for nor oppose it (Shah's statement). If we support it then we will be branded anti-Bengalis and anti-Bengali language and this might have an adverse impact on our expansion in the state. Besides, opposing Amit Shah's statement is not possible for us," a senior state BJP leader said here on Monday.
Recollecting that the Bengali-non Bengali issue had cost BJP dear during the final phase of April-May Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, another senior party leader said it had drawn a blank in the nine seats that went to polls then.
"We won seats in Bengal in the first six phases But in the final seventh phase we failed to win even a single seat because of this Bengali and non-Bengali issue, which was milked by TMC post the vandalism of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue on May 14," the BJP leader said.
The state BJP unit is apprehensive that the issue might snowball into a major political issue as Trinamool Congress went hammer and tongs on Shah's Hindi Divas tweet accusing the saffron party of pushing its policy of imposing Hindi, sources in it said.
Shah had on Saturday pitched for a common language for the country and said as Hindi is spoken the most it can unite the whole country.
"Actually we can neither openly vouch for nor oppose it (Shah's statement). If we support it then we will be branded anti-Bengalis and anti-Bengali language and this might have an adverse impact on our expansion in the state. Besides, opposing Amit Shah's statement is not possible for us," a senior state BJP leader said here on Monday.
Recollecting that the Bengali-non Bengali issue had cost BJP dear during the final phase of April-May Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, another senior party leader said it had drawn a blank in the nine seats that went to polls then.
"We won seats in Bengal in the first six phases But in the final seventh phase we failed to win even a single seat because of this Bengali and non-Bengali issue, which was milked by TMC post the vandalism of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's statue on May 14," the BJP leader said.
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