Malda (West Bengal): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday asserted the BJP will not allow a Babri Masjid replica to be built in West Bengal once it “assumes power in the state after the assembly elections”.
He even termed Humayun Kabir, the chief of the newly-formed Aam Janata Unnayan Party that is taking on both the BJP and the TMC in the upcoming state polls, an “agent” of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Kabir was suspended from the TMC in December last year after he proposed building a Babri-like mosque in the Beldanga area of Murshidabad district, bordering Malda.
Shah alleged that Kabir was “taking cues” from the Trinamool supremo for the proposed construction of his pet project.
“Mamata didi and Humayun Kabir should listen to me carefully. This is Bharat, and no man worth his salt can build a Babri Masjid here,” Shah said at a poll rally at Gazole in Malda district.
“Humayun Kabir should listen with his ears open when I say the BJP won’t allow the mosque to be built. Mamata Banerjee and her nephew should also know that their dreams of building that mosque will be shattered on May 5,” Shah said at a rally held earlier in the day in Malda’s Manikchak area.
Polling in West Bengal will be held in two phases — on April 23 and April 29. Votes will be counted on May 4.
Kabir laid the foundation stone of the mosque on December 6 last year, the 33rd anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, with the project creating major political dust-up across the state.
The mosque is being built on approximately eight acres of private land, at an estimated cost of Rs 86 crore.
On Monday, while addressing multiple public meetings in Birbhum and Paschim Bardhaman districts, the Union home minister alleged that the TMC supremo and Kabir are “two of a kind”.
At a rally in the coal mine belt of Raniganj in Paschim Bardhaman district, Shah had accused Banerjee of opposing the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and drew parallels with Kabir’s initiative to build a Babri-style mosque.
“The Congress, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and other parties such as the DMK, Samajwadi Party, and Bahujan Samaj Party supported keeping Ram Lalla under a tent for 550 years.
“After receiving an overwhelming mandate from people in 2019, Modiji built the Ram temple in Ayodhya, which leaders like Banerjee opposed. Now, Humayun Kabir, who is cast in the same mould as Mamata Banerjee, wants to build Babri Masjid in Bengal,” the former BJP chief said.
Shah’s remarks are seen as the BJP’s attempt at blunting the TMC’s offensive over a viral video in which Kabir was purportedly heard saying he was in touch with BJP leaders to unseat Banerjee from power and receiving Rs 200 crore as an advance for a Rs 1,000-crore deal to split the minority votes.
Latching on to the purported remarks in the 19-minute video, the veracity of which PTI could not independently verify, Banerjee had alleged on Sunday that the BJP has “struck a Rs 1,000-crore deal” with Kabir to undermine the TMC.
In a strong rebuttal to those allegations, Shah had declared that the BJP would “rather sit in the opposition for 20 years” than enter into an alliance with Kabir, stressing that the two were “North Pole and South Pole opposites” in their ideological positions. (PTI)
