BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Friday accused Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra of insulting the Matua community and questioned the silence of Bengal's ruling party on the issue.

"The way the local MP has insulted the Matua community is quite shocking. She ridiculed their garland, which is their identity," Adhikari said.

In a speech at Karimpur in Nadia district in the last week of August, Moitra allegedly ridiculed the Matua community for taking benefits of social schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar throughout the year and then voting for the BJP.

“What kind of approach (is this?)... A Scheduled Caste woman gets ₹1,200 through the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme… but when the ballot boxes are opened, it is 85 votes for the BJP and 15 for other parties," Moitra was heard saying in a widely circulated video.

Condemning the silence of the Trinamool leadership, Adhikari said on Friday: "No Trinamool leader condemned her statement. Only Matua family leader and Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Mamatabala Thakur protested, and her Matua organisation gave Mahua Moitra three days to apologise. Mamata Banerjee didn’t bother to endorse it. Indulged with such support, Mahua Moitra has on several occasions made derogatory remarks about Hindus and Hindu goddesses. She has never been reprimanded for such abusive comments."

The leader of the Opposition urged members of the Matua community to deliver a befitting reply to what he described as "humiliation".

After the BJP protested against the speech and lodged police complaints against the Krishnanagar MP, Trinamool leader Mamatabala wrote to the chief minister to take action against Moitra.

Addressing a public meeting at Post Office Square in Krishnanagar town on Friday, Adhikari intensified his criticism of Trinamool for being soft on illegal immigration and communal appeasement. He reiterated the urgency to conduct a special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in the bordering districts of Bengal, with particular focus on districts like Nadia, where a significant number of Bangladeshi nationals have allegedly infiltrated and secured their names on the voters' list.

The BJP leader said there would be no vote without SIR and urged party workers to prepare for the upcoming exercise to revise electoral rolls.

Adhikari's comment comes in the backdrop of the Election Commission preparing to roll out the SIR in Bengal after Durga Puja and chief minister Mamata Banerjee saying two-three months were inadequate for an exercise that should take a few years.

"Be active and careful to remove the dead (ghost) voters, double-entered voters, triple-entered voters, Rohingyas, and Bangladeshi nationals who managed to get into the voters' list with the support of the ruling party," Adhikari said.

Adhikari alleged that large stretches of the border remain unfenced due to the state government's non-cooperation in handing over land to the Border Security Force (BSF), which he alleged had facilitated massive infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals into Indian territory over the years.

"Many of these Bangladeshi people have permanently settled here and got their names enrolled in the voters' list. You have to ensure that the names of these Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas are deleted from the voters' list through the SIR. We all have to do it to save the country," he said as he fervently invoked religious sentiments.