Raidighi: BJP is trying to engineer communal strife in West Bengal to win the assembly elections, alleged West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday. Mamatha Banerjee in an apparent jibe at Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM and Abbas Siddiqui’s ISF also called upon Muslims to steer clear of the “trap laid by a BJP-aided party from Hyderabad and its Bengal ally that are out to polarize votes”.

Mamatha Banerjee in her address in a rally in Raidighi in South-24 Parganas district, said, “The Hyderabad man and his associate in Furfura Sharif (Siddiqui) here want to divide minority votes at the behest of the BJP, and repeat what had happened during Bihar polls”. Both Owaisi and Siddiqui have time and again rejected the TMC’s assertion. The ISF is fighting the elections in alliance with the CPI (M) and the Congress.

Mamatha Banerjee in her election campaign at Tarakeswar in Hooghly district, said about the Partition of Bengal in 1905, and how Hindus and Muslims had together fought against the division, she said, the BJP is also trying to create division and rift” among the people of the state. Taking a dig at TMC turncoats, the CM, during her rally in Raidighi, said sitting MLA from the seat and actor Debasree Roy joined the BJP, as she was denied a party ticket. “We don’t keep opportunists in our party,” said Mamatha.

She explained her Government’s achievements in the state since ten years to the public i.e., “Work for infrastructural development in Sunderbans has been undertaken by the TMC dispensation. The state Government has taken an initiative to provide egg meal at Rs 5. A steel bridge will soon come up in Kulpi, connecting Gangasagar with the mainland”.