The first phase of the West Bengal assembly elections is scheduled to be held tomorrow. Ahead of the polls, a TMC candidate has made a controversial and anti-India statement that is all set to push Hindus of the state towards BJP, if they had not already. Speaking at an election rally while campaigning for another TMC candidate Bidhan Chandra Majhi who is contesting from Nanoor (SC) Birbhum, TMC leader named Sheikh Alam said that Muslims are 30 per cent and others are 70 per cent. He said that if these 30 per cent Muslims in the country come together, Hindus will have nowhere to go in the country.
“We are 30 per cent and they are 70 per cent. They will come to power with the support of 70 per cent, they should be ashamed. If our Muslim population moves to one side then we can create 4 new Pakistans. Where will 70 per cent of the population go?” said Sheikh Alam.
Talking about some incident in the area, the TMC leader said that if they wanted, they could have ordered their boys to remove those people (Hindus) in five minutes. “They would have beaten them with sticks, but we didn’t do that, because we have trust on Mamata Banerjee,” he added.
As soon as TMC’s extremist leader and his rotten ideas went viral on the social media platforms, BJP quickly latched onto it and started to weave the narrative in its favour. BJP leader Amit Malviya accused the TMC supremo of reducing the majority community in the state to second-grade citizens.
“TMC leaders like Sheikh Alam have the audacity to dream of 4 Pakistan because of Mamata Banerjee’s brazen appeasement politics over the last 10 years. She reduced the majority community in WB to second-grade citizens, where they had to seek court approval even for Durga visarjan!” tweeted Malviya.
TMC leaders like Sheikh Alam have the audacity to dream of 4 Pakistan because of Mamata Banerjee’s brazen appeasement politics over the last 10 years. She reduced the majority community in WB to second grade citizens, where they had to seek court approval even for Durga visarjan! https://t.co/OqCssgOSWi
— Amit Malviya (मोदी का परिवार) (@amitmalviya) March 25, 2021
This is not the first time that a TMC leader has openly spewed venom against the Hindus and gone scot-free. In the fifth phase of the 2016 Assembly elections, Firhaad Hakeem, whilst speaking to a Pakistani reporter had said, “Come, I’ll take you to Kolkata’s Mini-Pakistan”. Hakeem was referring to Kolkata’s ‘Garden Reach’ area which has a sizeable Muslim population.
Mamata and her party’s anti-Hindu credentials have never been hidden from anyone. The state CM has a problem with people chanting “Jai Shree Ram” whom she dubs as criminals. Therefore, one can expect the minority leaders like Sheikh Alam to make such statements on a regular basis.
The constituency where Alam made these statements lies in the Birbhum district. A few years back, 300 Hindu families in the Kanglapahadi village of Birbhum district had to run from pillar to post after 25 opposing and ‘oppressed’ Muslim families did not allow them to celebrate Durga Puja for four years straight. Interestingly, it was the district as well as the state authorities that denied Hindus permission to celebrate their holy festival — suggesting it was Mamata Banerjee’s party line of being partisan towards Muslims.
Mamata Banerjee, herself has given more importance to a festival like Muharram, allowing the Muslims to carry the procession through the streets of Bengal whilst stopping the Durga visarjan festivities, saying it could cause communal tension. If it was a one-off incident, one could have swept it under the rug but Mamata has time and again undermined the idol immolation festivities and given more importance to her ‘appeasement’ politics.
Prashant Kishor, the mastermind behind Mamata’s electoral policies, seems to have meticulously planned a campaign where Hindus are being continuously disparaged by Mamata and her coterie of leaders. Only time will tell, how costly this mistake proves to the TMC supremo as her political career hangs by the thread,