Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday lashed out at the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, calling the state’s prevailing situation “maha jungle raj” and alleging that corruption, nepotism and appeasement of the ruling dispensation have prevented development in the state.

Addressing a massive gathering at Taherpur in Nadia district over the phone from Kolkata, Modi urged the people to provide a chance to the BJP in the upcoming assembly polls to form a “double engine government” in the state.

Dense fog at the venue prevented the Prime Minister’s helicopter from landing at the makeshift helipad there and forced him to return to the Kolkata airport.

“Let the TMC oppose me and BJP as much as it wants, but the ruling party cannot hold people to ransom, make them suffer and stop Bengal’s progress,” Modi said at the Parivartan Sankalpa Sabha, the fourth such meeting in Bengal this year.

“We will end TMC’s 'maha jungle raj' in Bengal where corruption, nepotism and appeasement politics are ruling the roost,” Modi claimed.

He alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led party was opposing the ongoing SIR exercise to “save infiltrators from getting identified”.

Claiming that the popular sentiment on Bengal’s grassroots was to “gain freedom from TMC’s misrule”, the Prime Minister said, “the lanes and alleys of the state are resonating with cries of the slogan ‘Banchte chai, BJP tai’ (Need BJP to live).”

Modi had arrived in Kolkata around 10.40 am and boarded a helicopter for Nadia, where he is scheduled to inaugurate national highway projects and later address a BJP rally titled Parivartan Sankalpa Sabha.

The Prime Minister’s visit comes amid heightened political tensions in the state over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. This is his first visit to West Bengal since the publication of the draft SIR rolls and his third visit to the state in the past five months.

According to officials, Modi is expected to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for two national highway projects worth around Rs 3,200 crore.

These include the inauguration of the 66.7-km four-laning of the Barajaguli–Krishnanagar section of NH-34 in Nadia district and the foundation stone laying for the 17.6-km four-laning of the Barasat–Barajaguli section in North 24 Parganas.

The projects are expected to improve connectivity between Kolkata and Siliguri and boost trade, tourism and economic activity across the state