In December 2023, on a trip to Calcutta, Union home minister Amit Shah had set a target of 35 Lok Sabha seats out of the 42 in Bengal. On Tuesday, two years later on another visit to Calcutta, Shah announced that the BJP will form the government after the state Assembly elections due next year.
“I have said we will form the government with two-third majority in the next elections. That is our target,” Shah said while replying to a question during a news conference in Calcutta on Tuesday.
“After the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP has formed governments in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and now Bihar. These two years since Narendra Modi was elected prime minister for a third time has been a happy period for us. Bengal is important for the BJP and we will form the next government.”
Shah will hold a meeting with the party’s core group in Bengal later in the day and with the 12 party MPs from the state on Wednesday.
As he had done during the run-up to the Bihar polls, Shah raised the infiltration stick at the ruling Trinamool.
“The next elections will be fought on the issue of infiltration,” he declared. “Infiltration is no longer a Bengal-specific issue. It is now linked to national security.”
The Union home minister has often been questioned by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her party leaders on the role of the BSF – which functions under Shah’s ministry – in controlling the international borders.
“I want to ask which state government has refused to give land for the fencing of the borders? It is your [Mamata’s] government,” Shah said on Tuesday.
He asked: “What is her strategy to stop infiltration? After crossing the border, the first thing they do is go to a village in Bengal. What do the village heads, the local police do? Why is this person not arrested and sent back?”
The Union home minister said that despite three meetings between the Union home secretary and Bengal’s chief secretary the border-fencing issue remains unresolved.
The stretch of the international border between Bengal and Bangladesh is around 2,216.7 km, of which 1,647.69 km have been fenced till August 2025.
Around 112.78 km is non-feasible for fencing and 456.22 km is feasible. For the feasible part where fencing can be done, the Trinamool government is yet to acquire land for around 148.971 km, with the remaining 229.318 km is in various stages of land acquisition, according to a Press Information Bureau release from August this year.
“Why has infiltration stopped in Assam, Tripura, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and Kashmir? Bengal’s demography has changed. The people here are scared. Bengal and its culture are under threat,” Shah said.
“Doesn’t the Bengal government have any responsibility? Who makes documents for them? Any infiltrator caught in any part of the country, the documents are found to be made in Bengal. The Trinamool has made it a policy to protect infiltrators at all costs,” he claimed.
Shah had come prepared with several lists for his talk with the media in Calcutta. One of them was the industrial achievements of Bengal, mostly pre-Independence and some post-Independence.
“The first power plant in the country, the first car manufacturing plant, the first steel plant, the first high-rise building in the country, the first jute mill, the first metro rail happened here. None of these happened under Mamata ji’s rule. During her rule 7,000 companies have fled Bengal for extortion and syndicate control. Bengal is on the brink of economic despair,” he said.
Shah questioned why the Mamata Banerjee government would not allow central schemes in the state.
“The metro cannot run on the air. It is the state’s responsibility to provide land,” he said. “There is no problem in Tamil Nadu, Telangana [Opposition-ruled states]. In other states when the prime minister comes to inaugurate a project, even the Opposition chief ministers attend. Here, Mamata ji won’t even share the dais. What is she so scared about?”
Shah recalled work on the metro services in the Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow started when the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister.
“Bengal’s development has stopped. Welfare schemes launched by the Modi government have reached a dead end. Fear and corruption has turned into Bengal’s identity,” Shah said.
The other list that Shah had kept with him was of those Trinamool leaders and functionaries who were accused in one of the several scams that have rocked the state since Mamata Banerjee first took oath as chief minister in May 2011.
Rolling out a list of names, Shah asked, “Will she reply why Rs. 27 crore was recovered from one of her ministers? In a poor state like Bengal, crores of rupees are found in the homes of Trinamool ministers and leaders. Is there no accountability? The list of names is long and she says there is no corruption? She has to answer these questions.”
The Union home minister also criticised the law and order situation in the state specifically on the issue of women’s safety.
“Women can’t step out of their hostels after 7pm? Are we living in the Mughal era? It is our constitutional duty to provide a safe and secure environment for the women,” he said.
“The families of the RG Kar rape and murder case, the Durgapur and South Calcutta law college rape case are also waiting for this incompetent government to go.”