Ahmedabad:
Union Home Minister Amit Shah today launched a scathing attack on the administrative state of West Bengal, drawing a stark historical comparison to highlight what he termed a complete lack of progress under successive non-BJP regimes.
At a townhall event in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Shah said that five decades of mismanagement have left the eastern state completely stagnant.
“The current situation of West Bengal is worse than that of Gujarat in 1964. Even worse, 1965 Gujarat will be better than current West Bengal,” Shah said. “In 50 years, there has been no development in such a huge, big state as West Bengal. For 50 years the public was fed up and highly frustrated and troubled,” Shah said.
Despite the administrative challenges, Shah praised the electorate of West Bengal for turning out in massive numbers in the recent assembly election, defying extreme weather conditions.
He drew a parallel between the voter enthusiasm and one of India’s largest spiritual gatherings to highlight the scale of the political shift toward the BJP.
“What a performance we did in Bengal,” Shah said. “Even in such intense heat, people came out to vote like it was the Kumbh Mela. Wherever I went, people chanted ‘Jai Shree Ram.’ The people have given us a very big responsibility.”
The home minister said the party’s geopolitical influence now spans the entire course of the holy river, marking a significant milestone in national politics. “From the beginning of the Ganga all the way to Ganga Sagar in West Bengal, today BJP is in power,” Shah said, attributing the party’s rising momentum in the region to the hard work of its grassroots party cadre.