Home Minister Amit Shah asserted on Wednesday that the Central government will implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and no one can stop it.
Addressing a big rally here to launch the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign, Shah launched a blistering attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the issues of appeasement, infiltration, corruption and political violence, alleging she has ”destroyed” the state.
Banerjee has been opposing the CAA due to her support to infiltration, he asserted, adding that a state with so much infiltration cannot develop.
By electing the BJP in the 2026 assembly elections, he said, people would throw out her government and lay its foundation in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
He said, ”Give so many seats to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls that Modi ji says I have become PM due to Bengal.” The Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress won the last assembly polls by ”rigging” but the BJP jumped to 77 seats from zero, he said, calling upon people to end the TMC’s alleged misrule of corruption, infiltration, and political violence by electing a government conducive to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of development.
BJP will come to power with two-third majority in 2026, he said, lauding the rally’s turnout.
In the assembly polls in 2024, BJP’s performance in the state will determine its victory, he said.
Banerjee has opposed CAA, but it is a law of the country and no one can stop its implementation, which has been in limbo as the central government is yet to frame its rules amid opposition’s opposition.
The law was passed in 2019 and they have as much a right to citizenship as anyone else, Shah said. Earlier, Banerjee stalled Parliament over the issue of infiltration, but now she is keeping mum, claiming no one can infiltrate into Assam after the BJP came to power.
”Assam has done a commendable job in stopping infiltration. But in West Bengal, infiltration persists due to the TMC government’s vote-bank politics. Mamata Banerjee is opposing CAA, but let me say it clearly that CAA will be implemented in the country. No one can stop the implementation of CAA,” Shah declared.
Hitting out at Banerjee over the suspension of the Leader of Opposition in Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari, he said she may try to silence him but cannot silence people of the state.
Her time as the state’s chief minister is over, he said, often referring to her as ‘didi’.
Shah dared Banerjee to suspend from her party some of its leaders arrested in corruption cases, and said she cannot do it as she apprehended that they may implicate her nephew, a reference to MP Abhishek Banerjee.
”The people of Bengal are fed up with the cut money and syndicates of TMC,” he said. The home minister said as many as 212 BJP workers have been killed in West Bengal in political violence and added that people will avenge these murders with their votes in the 2026 assembly polls.
Banerjee has destroyed West Bengal, Shah alleged, citing political violence, corruption, appeasement in state. The state’s development is Modi’s top priority but it can only happen when there is a government conducive to the prime minister’s agenda, he said. He urged people to ensure a big win for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls.
”We must ensure that the BJP forms the next government in West Bengal. To achieve this, we must win the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats from the state in the next Parliamentary elections,” Shah emphasised, echoing sentiments expressed during an April rally when he set a target of winning over 35 seats in the state.
The union minister was addressing the rally at the historic Esplanade, with an eye on setting the tone for the party’s Lok Sabha campaign in the state. The party had won 18, its highest ever, of the state’s 42 seats in 2019.
At the rally Shah was joined by the state party leadership and Union ministers from the state.
