Kolkata: Sharpening the BJP’s 2026 West Bengal poll narrative, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday identified the issues of “infiltration and corruption” as the primary campaign weapons in the saffron camp’s arsenal to “uproot” the TMC from the power corridors of the state.
Addressing a closed-door meeting of grassroots workers and leaders at the Science City Auditorium in eastern Kolkata, Shah said both infiltration and corruption have acquired “institutional status” under the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress regime and that the metropolis “wouldn’t remain immune for long from the impact of these vices”.
The home minister was speaking to booth-level and mandal-level workers of the BJP’s Kolkata Mahanagar area, which comprises 28 assembly constituencies in and around the city.
This was the last of the back-to-back meetings on Shah’s tightly-packed itinerary during his 48-hour visit to West Bengal where he fixed agendas, assigned tasks and responsibilities on leaders, coordinated with the state RSS and chiselled out issues with which the saffron camp would jump into the poll fray in the coming months.
“Dil pe likh lo, isbaar humari sarkar (Etch this in your hearts, it will be our government this time),” Shah was quoted as saying in his address by a worker who attended the meet.
Shah, considered the chief poll strategist of the BJP, told workers that the “danger of infiltration” was clear and present and those living in the city would soon be badly affected by it if they didn’t turn around and fight the menace, the functionary said.
Shah focused on the TMC’s ‘Maa-Mati-Manush’ slogan when it assumed power in the state and said in his speech that the ruling dispensation has vitiated each of those three tenets during its rule, the worker added.
The leader said while ‘Maa’ (mother) is in danger because women are unsafe in the state, there’s little space for ‘Manush’ (humans), as ordinary people are escaping West Bengal’s boundaries for better opportunities, and ‘Mati’ (earth) of the state is being occupied by infiltrators, the BJP worker said.
Shah set a victory target of at least 20 of the 28 assembly seats falling within the four Lok Sabha constituencies of the party’s Kolkata Mahanagar area from where workers attended the session.
“The Union home minister has given the direction to the BJP karyakartas to work for the victory of the party, keeping aside everything else till the counting for the 2026 assembly elections is over,” BJP leader Sishir Bajoria, who was present at the meeting, told reporters at the venue.
He said Shah asked party workers to ensure victory in seats in the state’s Presidency division, which he said the TMC thinks is its stronghold.
“But though the TMC thinks it is their stronghold, we will prove in the next elections that it is not true,” Bajoria said.
Shah had on Tuesday asserted that the BJP will win two-thirds of the total constituencies in the 294-seat West Bengal assembly, which is set to go to polls in early 2026.
