Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Wednesday said that the party will not project a chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, ANI reported.
Vijayvargiya, the BJP’s central observer for West Bengal, told the news agency that the candidate will be selected after the party wins a majority in the election.
“Nobody is asking about the chief minister face in West Bengal elections,” Vijayvargiya said. “In most of the states where the BJP doesn’t have a government, we fight elections without chief ministerial candidates. Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Assam are examples of this.”
Vijayvargiya claimed that several members from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress wanted to join the BJP. “There are many people who are unhappy with Mamataji and want to come to our party,” he said. “But we will not accept those leaders involved in cow smuggling, money smuggling and anti-national activities. We will take those who believe in the politics of development and the leadership of Modiji [Prime Minister Narendra Modi].”
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The BJP leader also accused Banerjee of pushing West Bengal into anarchy. “Mamata Banerjee’s government is a synonym of violence and on a daily basis our workers are being killed and injured,” he was quoted as saying by ANI. “We will form the government there [in West Bengal] and reclaim the Bengal of Rabindranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.”
The elections in West Bengal are expected to be held in April-May. It will be a closely-watched contest between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
On Monday, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari had said that he was willing to contest from the Nandigram Assembly seat against Banerjee and expressed confidence that he will defeat her. His statement came shortly after Banerjee announced her constituency.
Adhikari, who switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party from the Trinamool Congress in December, had won the key seat in the 2016 Assembly elections.
Nandigram symbolises the Trinamool Congress’ struggle against forcible land acquisition by the then Left Front regime for creation of a special economic zone. The Nandigram movement, a campaign for farmers’ land, had catapulted Banerjee to power in the 2011 state elections. It marked the end of the decades-long Left rule in the state.
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