Shubhendu Adhikari, Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly. file | Photo Credit: PTI
Leader of Opposition said, ‘Muslims of West Bengal will not vote for us’ Shubhendu Adhikari Said during a conversation with media persons on Wednesday. The BJP leader accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of ‘poisoning Muslims’ in the state against the BJP. National Register of Citizens (NRC), The Nandigram MLA’s remarks were in reference to the defection of Congress MLA from Sagardighi Byron Biswas to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on May 29 and the constituency with 70% Muslim voters was impossible for a BJP candidate to win.
This was not the first time that the officer has raised the issue of NRC. In the last few months, BJP leaders had even pointed out to the Muslims in the state that they were fooled during the 2021 assembly elections by threatening them on the issue of NRC. Unlike other BJP leaders in the state, Mr. Adhikari has taken a different approach to reach out to Muslims and pointed out that a large number of Muslims are migrating to West Bengal for jobs. Mr Adhikari has been insisting that the BJP is not against “nationalist Muslims” and is trying to garner some support from the community, which officially accounts for 27.01% of the electorate in the state.
Mr Adhikari’s remarks were in response to the Sagardighi defection and the TMC leadership raising the issue of NRC. Ms Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee have been “warning” Muslims that the BJP government at the Center is making fresh efforts to implement the NRC.
On 18 April, while addressing a press conference at the state secretariat, the chief minister referred to a letter from the Center on identifying illegal Aadhaar card holders in North and South 24 Parganas districts, expressing concern that the BJP government would The first is reviving the redundancy of citizenship. Election. Since then, the TMC leadership, which has been busy with party outreach under Mr Banerjee, has repeatedly raised the issue.
The defection of Mr. Biswas also matters to the TMC as far as the support of Muslim voters in the state is concerned. The people of Sagardighi had chosen to vote for the Left-backed Congress candidate instead of the TMC on February 28 and Mr Biswas won by a margin of around 23,000 votes.
Keeping aside the ideological and moral issues related to defection, a section of political observers feel that defection is going to help Trinamool as far as Muslim voters are concerned. “The defection of Byron Biswas is a masterstroke by the Trinamool Congress. This will send a message to Muslim voters that they may vote for anyone they like, but the elected representatives will eventually join the ruling party,” said Biswanath Chakraborty, political observer and election analyst.
Pro. Chakraborty said that Muslims had a tendency to vote for a party which would defeat the BJP and unless the BJP gets some support from the community, the party cannot taste electoral success in the state.
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ISF MLA’s allegation
Meanwhile, at a time when Mr Biswas’s defection is being debated in political circles, Naushad Siddiqui, the lone non-Trinamool Muslim MLA, courted a political controversy on Thursday by saying that he was being lured by the ruling party which He was offered crores of rupees and a ministerial post if he decided to join the Trinamool Congress. The MLA said that he was also threatened by the ruling party but he decided not to defect. Mr Siddiqui is the lone MLA from the Indian Secular Front (ISF) and was elected from the Bhangar assembly seat from South 24 Parganas in the 2021 assembly elections. The ISF had entered into an electoral alliance with the Left parties and the Congress in the last assembly elections.