Kolkata, Pointing out that the BJP has made massive progress in West Bengal politics by emerging as the prime opposition party in the recent elections here, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday claimed the saffron outfit would capture the majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 general elections.
“Politics in Bengal was lopsided. The Communist party ruled here for many years before Trinamool came to power. Even a few years back, BJP was the fourth or fifth largest party here. The biggest thing is we have successfully emerged as the main opposition here,” Javadekar told media persons.
“Even in the rural areas, where we did not have even 50 seats earlier, we have captured 5,600 seats in the last election (rural body election). In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Bengal will see majority of seats going in BJP’s favour,” he said.
The BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh also accused the Bengal government of taking up a four-pronged strategy to rig the recent state rural polls and said the electorate would give the ruling party a befitting reply.
Referring to the killings of two BJP activists in Bengal’s Purulia district in the last one week, he also accused the state government of not investigating these murder cases and thereby promoting the culture of political murders in the state.
“The government of West Bengal took up a four-pronged strategy to rig the three-pronged election. In the rural body elections they did not allow nominations to be filed, campaigns to be held, voters to vote or the electoral officers to count (votes) in many places,” he accused.
“Political murders are going on day in and day out in West Bengal. Nineteen workers of BJP have been killed, the latest cases being those of Dulal Das and Trilochan Mahato. They were hanged. This is inhumane. The Bengal government is not investigating the murders at all. People will definitely teach a lesson to those who indulge in political murder culture,” Javadekar said.
He rebuffed the claim by some local leaders that the two killings in Purulia were the outcome of infighting between the district BJP unit and the Bajrang Dal activists.
Responding to a question on the status of the ongoing CBI probe into the Saradha ponzi scam in which a number of Trinamool Congress leaders were named, the Union Human Resource Development Minister claimed everyone involved in the fraud will go to jail.
“We are not silent. The probe is on. The result will come out and everyone involved in Saradha scam will go to jail,” he added.
