Union home minister Amit Shah, during a rally in West Bengal, launched an attack on chief minister Mamata Banerjee -- saying that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo came to power on the promise of a government for "Maa, Maati, Manush" but was now catering to "Mullah, Madrasa and Mafia".
“The TMC came to power on the slogan of ‘Maa, Mati, Manush’. However, their focus has now shifted to ‘Mullah, Madrasa, Mafia’. The Imams here are paid an honorarium but the priests and keepers of temples get nothing. While there are no obstacles to Tazias (procession of Muslim mourners on Muharram), there are regular roadblocks to taking out immersion processions on Durga Puja and Kali Puja. Should this be allowed to continue,” Shah said.
The home minister's remarks came while addressing a rally at Bangaon in the North 24 Parganas.
He also targeted the chief minister yet again for rejecting the invite for 'pran pratishtha' of Ram lalla in Ayodhya on January 22. “Despite receiving a formal invitation, she did not attend the inauguration ceremony (at the Ram temple) to appease a certain vote bank. You (people) are not her vote bank, the infiltrators are. She is scared of rubbing her vote bank the wrong way,” he said.
Accusing the chief minister of spreading falsehoods over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), he said she was ‘misleading’ people on the central legislation that is aimed at granting asylum and permanent residency to immigrant minority settlers from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Shah was campaigning for BJP candidate Shantanu Thakur, who is in a fight against TMC's Biswajit Das in his bid to secure a fresh term in the Lok Sabha from Bangaon.
Polling in Bengal is being conducted across all seven phases from April 19 to June 1 and the counting of votes is scheduled for June 4.
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