New Delhi: Hours after a tribal couple, who had hosted Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah during his West Bengal visit, joined ruling Trinamool Congress, the BJP on Wednesday alleged that the TMC was playing revenge politics.
Addressing a press conference, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ravi Shankar Prasad alleged that the TMC abducted the tribal couple — Raju and Gita Mahali. The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal then forced them to join the ruling party, Prasad further claimed.
“While the BJP unit tried to register a case, it was not registered. Today, they (the couple) came out in the morning and announced themselves as supporters of TMC while police were guarding their house," the Union Minister for Law and Justice said.
"This is a textbook case of revenge politics. A simple tribal family is not left out in this," he said.
"We are hurt by the incident, but we are least concerned with the party (TMC). Whatever struggle has to be done, our party workers will do it. Can Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stop the march of democratic feeling by the use of force?" he asked.
The minister further said that the TMC is scared of BJP's successive victories in polls as well as the success of party chief Amit Shah's yatra in West Bengal.
"BJP is winning one election after another, but instead of taking rest, Shah is travelling across India. And that has scared the TMC," he claimed.
He wondered if the TMC's "desperation" was caused by the CBI's probe into Saradha chit fund scam case and the Narada bribary sting allegedly involving several of its MPs.
"The investigation will not stop. It is based on evidence which is in the public domain. Bengal is seeing reckless violence and overpowering fear of the TMC," he said, adding the ruling party could not tolerate a tribal couple offering lunch to the BJP president.
The "success" of Shah's visit has unnerved the TMC, he claimed.
Prasad said the BJP workers and others whom Shah met during his visit to Bhawanipur, Mamata's Assembly constituency, are also under "pressure".
Such violence and fear prevailed in the state during the Left rule and it is a tragedy that it remains so during the TMC rule as well, he said.
He also used the opportunity to accuse the Mamata government of appeasing one section of the society, a reference to Muslims, by the "misuse" of state power and noted that it stopped religious processions during 'Ram Navami' and 'Hanuman Jayanti'.
A delegation of BJP West Bengal will meet Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and apprise him of the concerns, said Prasad.
During the first leg of his 'Vistar Yatra' to expand the Bharatiya Janata Party's base, Shah had lunch at the house of tribal daily wager Raju Mahali. He makes a living by painting apartments and buildings.
Shah had sat on the floor at the spartan house in Dakkhin Katiajote village in West Bengal's Naxalbari block and was served vegetarian fare on a banana leaf by Mahali's wife.
(With Agency inputs)
