West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: With West Bengal polls inching closer, the political slugfest in the state is getting intensified. On Wednesday, the disgruntle Trinamool Congress leader Suvendu Adhikari tendered his resignation from Bengal legislative assembly amid reports of him joining the saffron camp during Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit in the state.  Suvendu, once a close confidant of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, has a strong influence over the local party TMC leaders in Malda, Murshidabad, Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore, where he was the party in-charge.

Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, took a dig at the leaders who recently left Trinamool Congress to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. While addressing a rally in Jalpaiguri, Mamata Banerjee said, “Some dacoits of Chambal and goons from outside have entered Bengal. At times they threaten police and sometimes they threaten TMC. Today TMC is as deep-rooted as a Banyan tree. 2-3 people who know they won’t get a ticket from the party are going away.”

Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party over the issue of NRC, the TMC supremo said, “Sometimes they say CAA will be done & NRC won’t be done, sometimes they say NRC will be done & NPR won’t be done. But I am saying today they will do all three. I didn’t allow NPR in my state & won’t do so.”

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the deserters of ruling TMC “opportunists and cowards” and accused BJP of trying to coerce Trinamool Congress leaders to join the saffron party.

She also blamed BJP for trying to break TMC by using “moneybags”. Banerjee, who is also the TMC supremo, urged the people to give their mandate against the “outsider” BJP, which she said has come here to loot the Bengalis and leave after the elections are over.

“Imagine the audacity of the BJP leaders – they are calling up my (TMC) state president Subrata Bakshi and asking him to join the party. The BJP does nt have any political courtesy or ideology. And, there are one or two opportunists who only work for their own benefits,” she told a rally.

“The old-timers of the party are our real assets. We have an ideology, those who are deserting the party don’t have any ideological conviction. The BJP is trying to coerce TMC leaders to join. It is using moneybags to break opposition parties… But, we will fight and defeat them in the assembly polls,” she asserted.

Reacting to Banerjee’s allegation of BJP trying to poach TMC MLAs and elected representatives, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said “The allegations are baseless. The truth is TMC leaders and members of Prashant Kishor’s team are calling up BJP leaders in various parts of the state,”

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi also lashed out at West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over her remarks that the BJP was ”spending money” to bring in a party from Hyderabad to her state to divide Hindu-Muslim votes and said Muslim voters were not her ”jagir” (property).

Rebutting Banerjee’s comments, Owaisi tweeted, “So far you’ve only dealt with obedient Mir Jaffers & Sadiqs. You dont like Muslims who think & speak for themselves. You’ve insulted our voters in Bihar. Remember what happened to parties in Bihar that kept blaming their failures on “vote cutters”.. Muslim voters aren’t your jagir.”

While addressing a rally in the poll-bound state on Tuesday, Banerjee had slammed the saffron party for allegedly trying to import AIMIM in Bengal to sharpen the communal polarisation and divide the Hindu-Muslim votes among themselves.

She also alleged that the BJP was spending crores of rupees to bring in AIMIM. The AIMIM, after its good show in the Bihar assembly polls, has announced to contest in next year’s Bengal polls.