On Monday, a war of words was triggered between the TMC and the BJP, after Dilip Ghosh (State BJP President) argued that his party would work on ‘turning West Bengal into Gujarat’ once it comes to power in the state.

Taking a jibe at the former Left front leaders in the state, Ghosh stated that leaders such as Biman Bose, & former CM Buddhababu (Buddhadeb Bhattacharya) made sure that people here do not become doctors, engineers but migrant workers who seek jobs in other states like Gujarat. He added that BJP plans to transform Bengal into Gujarat once it forms government at Kolkata.

Ghosh further said, “Didi (CM Mamta Banerjee) constantly blames us of trying to turn Bengal into Gujarat. We say that we will definitely transform Bengal into Gujarat so that our children get jobs here and they do not have to migrate to Gujarat.”

This development comes when Amit Shah visited West Bengal after the poll victory in Bihar. BJP is now gunning for the 2021 Bengal polls. Amit Shah’s visit to Bengal is said to have soothed the nerves of BJP workers who are gearing up for 2021 polls in the state.

Senior TMC leader and state minister Firhad Hakim took aim at the BJP MP and asked him to leave Bengal and to go to Gujarat. Hakim further said that “Around 2,000 people were killed in the Gujarat riots in 2002. If we turn Bengal into Gujarat then people will fall victims to fake encounters. Hence, we do not want to turn Bengal into Gujarat.”

Hakim, in an attempt to hit an emotional chord also stated that this is Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengal and that people really need to decide whether to degrade Bengal’s cultural heritage or inherit the brawl communal politics from Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Ghosh asserted that his party will definitely defeat TMC’s North 24 Paraganas district president and state minister Jyotipriya Mullick in next year’s assembly polls. He stated that Mullick has hoodwinked the people of the state and acquired cut money from them and blamed Mullick of multiple scams including PDS scam.

Jyotipriya Mullick retorted back stating that BJP will draw a blank in the North 24 Parganas district.

BJP has recently appointed a new chief of IT team, more correctly the co-in-charge, Amit Malviya, keeping in consideration the state polls of 2021. Malviya arrived in the state on Monday. Party leaders in Bengal BJP saw Malviya’s appointment as a boost by the BJP’s top leadership for the battle on social media in the run-up to the upcoming Bengal polls.

The author is a member of Amity center of Happiness