Setting the tone for the high-stakes West Bengal assembly polls, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday launched a broadside against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, accusing her government of “dangerously altering” the state’s demography by abetting the infiltration of Bangladeshis for electoral gains, widespread corruption, and failing to ensure women’s safety.With the polls for the 294-member state assembly less than six months away, Shah also asserted that the BJP will restore the state’s lost glory. “After April 15, 2026, when a BJP government is formed in Bengal, the party under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will begin the revival of the state’s pride, culture, and renaissance,” he said at a press conference here.
Shah, considered the principal poll strategist of the BJP, arrived here last night on a three-day visit to assess the party’s organisational preparedness for the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections in 2026.
The coming months ahead of the assembly polls are “crucial” for the state, he said, and added that West Bengal has witnessed “fear, corruption, and misgovernance” under 15 years of the Trinamool Congress.
Asserting that infiltration has created a sense of insecurity and anxiety among the people in the state, the Union Home Minister said the issue of “driving infiltrators out of the country” would be his party’s key poll issue.