Bengal has lagged in development, give BJP a chance: Shah

Sounding the poll bugle for the West Bengal Assembly elections which are still months away, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday claimed that the state had lagged behind other states in development and its law and order was in bad shape.

The senior BJP leader appealed to the people of West Bengal to vote his party to power in the next Assembly elections, promising to make it 'Sonar Bangla'.

Continuing his attack on the Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee, he said that there was open play of bomb blasts, kidnappings, narcotics and corruption and thus a political change was necessary in West Bengal.

"MLAs are being held captive, MPs are stopped. The BJP helped Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan - which were BIMARU states - to develop. You have seen the governments of the Left and the TMC; now give a chance to the BJP," he said while addressing a poll rally in the eastern state from here through videoconference.

The BJP leader also demanded that the TMC supremo give an account of what she did in the last 10 years in power in Bengal.

"Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's government is only doing politics. It has only been complaining against the Centre. If the Modi government is giving what all it did in the last 6 years, her government should also do the same," Shah added.

Shah claimed that if the BJP was voted to power in Bengal, it will ensure the end of corruption, terrorism, nepotism and appeasement. The state would be rid of scams like Narada and Sharada, he added.

Shah said that Banerjee had opposed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act due to her policy of appeasement and used unparliamentary words for her political rivals. "What wrong have the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh done for you to oppose grant of Indian citizenship to them?" he asked.

The Union Home Minister said that one crore people across the country had benefited from the Aayushman Bharat health insurance scheme of the central government, but the people of West Bengal had been deprived of its benefits.

He said that the Centre had repeatedly asked for list of intended poor beneficiaries in the state but the TMC government had been allegedly refusing to share the same.

Shah alleged that West Bengal government did not share the list of people who could benefit from the Kissan Samman Nidhi Yojana, due to which the intended beneficiaries could not get the money.

Around 1.25 crore migrant workers had been helped to return to their native states through 4300 Shramik Special trains so far by the central government, the BJP leader said.

He alleged that the TMC government allowed only 3 lakh migrants to return to West Bengal through 236 trains. "We called them Shramik Special trains but the TMC government called them Corona Express trains. This is an insult to the people of West Bengal," Shah claimed.

He said that the state which reverberated earlier with Rabindra Sangeet was now hearing the sounds of bullets and bomb blasts, adding that more than 100 BJP workers had been killed in the political violence in the eastern state.

The last Assembly election in West Bengal were held in April-May 2016, and are slated to be held in the first half of next year.