BJP chief blasts Mamata govt

India's ruling BJP yesterday alleged the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal did not properly investigate the Burdwan blast linked to Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

“Bengal is a bordering state and infiltration from Bangladesh is a problem. But here is a government which gives priority to vote-bank politics over national security. They are allowing infiltration from Bangladesh,” BJP President Amit Shah told a rally in Burdwan where a bomb blast took place in last October.

He said the Burdwan blast was linked to a terror module that was working in West Bengal and claimed the incident would not have happened had the Mamata government taken action when an explosion had earlier occurred at Garden Reach in Kolkata in 2013.

Shah also reminded people that the Mamata government had opposed an NIA probe into the Burdwan blast, throwing a question to his audience, “Will you allow such a state government which gives priority to vote-bank politics over national security?”

A number of people arrested in West Bengal and Bangladesh in connection with the Burdwan blast case are suspected to be key leaders of JMB.

Turning to the Saradha chit fund scam, the BJP president alleged Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was more interested in trying to save her scam-tainted party leaders than developing the state.

The Mamata government, he said, was taking West Bengal backward and that several big companies had closed down in the last two years.

He also accused Mamata's party Trinamool Congress of unleashing violence against BJP workers in West Bengal.

He made it clear that Bengal was very much on BJP's radar, asserting, "After Delhi and Bihar, a BJP government is going to be installed in the state."