TMC lambasts Amit Shah over 'conspiracy' to topple Bengal government

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has hit back at Union Home Minister Amit Shah's scathing attack on the West Bengal government at his Suri, Birbhum, meeting on Friday, reported The Times of India. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the "cat is out of the bag," referring to Shah's claims that the state government would change in 2025 even before the 2026 Assembly elections in Bengal.

• The TMC's reaction comes after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shah praised West Bengal Legislative Assembly's Leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, at the Birbhum rally for leading the fight against CM Mamata Banerjee-led state government.
• However, West Bengal's ruling party has claimed that the saffron brigade has been attempting to dethrone the elected TMC government.

Referring to Shah's comments, Ghosh said that they confirmed that the government changes across several states were actually planned by the BJP at the Centre. "It is now proved that government changes across Indian states have been engineered from Delhi," claimed Ghosh. "This is a political conspiracy to destabilize elected state governments, attested by no less than the Union home minister," he added.

"Shah said they would win 35 seats in Bengal in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It was reminiscent of all of his pre-2021 claims of 200-plus (Assembly) seats in Bengal. We saw the result," Ghosh added. "Let them start thinking from zero seats. Given the way things are, they have to sweat to win even a single seat in Bengal," said the TMC spokesperson.

On Friday, Shah appealed to the people of Bengal to ensure that the BJP won at least 35 out of the 42 seats in Bengal in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. While addressing the rally in Birbhum, the senior BJP leader also stated that the ruling TMC government wouldn't be able to survive beyond 2025 if the BJP achieved this target.

"Give us more than 35 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal, and I can assure you that the corrupt TMC government won't survive beyond 2025," Shah was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI. Furthermore, the Union home minister also asserted that Narendra Modi will once again become the prime minister of India in 2024.

Speaking about the recent Ram Navami violence, infiltration issues, and cow smuggling scandal in the state, the Union home minister claimed that voting the saffron brigade to power was the only way to end such crimes. "This Didi (CM Banerjee) and Bhatija's (TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee) misrule, isn't it misrule? And the only way to remove this misrule is the BJP," he said.