Mamata opposed Op Sindoor to appease Muslims, vote out non-patriot TMC: Shah

Two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said West Bengal was keen to oust a “ruthless” regime, his colleague and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday called upon the state to defeat an “unpatriotic” Trinamool Congress.

Addressing a BJP workers’ meeting in Kolkata, Shah accused Bengal Chief Minister and TMC president Mamata Banerjee of “opposing Operation Sindoor to appease her Muslim vote bank”.

“To appease her Muslim vote bank, Mamata Banerjee opposed Operation Sindoor. In the upcoming elections, the women of Bengal will teach her the true value of Sindoor (vermillion),” said Shah, as the BJP began early preparations for the 2026 Bengal Assembly elections.

The Home Minister said the entire nation wanted a patriotic government in Bengal this time and not one that was driven by appeasement.

Shah said, “Since 1990, India had endured terrorism, with the loss of over 40,000 lives. The Congress governments, and the UPA administrations — in which Banerjee was a minister — did nothing to address this menace. It was only after the Modi-led government came to power that the policy of responding to bullets with shells began.”

“Mamata didi can defend the terrorists as much as she likes but let me be clear: this is the BJP government and Operation Sindoor is far from over. Whoever dares to challenge us now will be met with an equally strong response,” he added.

Shah hailed the valour of the BSF and armed forces, saying: “I salute all BSF personnel and soldiers with folded hands for their courage.”

The Home Minister also flagged the issue of infiltration, saying the TMC government had left the borders open for Bangladeshi intruders.

“Only the BJP can stop this infiltration. The era of Mamata Banerjee’s appeasement politics was over and in 2026, a BJP government would get elected in Bengal,” he said.

He further said that Bengal was ruled for years by the communists, and after them, Banerjee, who came to power with the slogan of “Ma, Maati, and Manush”, turned this great land of Bengal into a hub of infiltration, corruption, atrocities on women and Hindus, crime and bomb blasts.

“The violence in Murshidabad was state-sponsored. The TMC actively perpetrated the Murshidabad riots in the wake of passage of the Waqf (Amendment) Act by the Parliament, with party ministers being complicit in the riots,” said Shah.

He noted that since 2017, the BJP had been steadily strengthening its political base in Bengal. After winning the Lok Sabha poll in 2019, the BJP secured 77 seats in the 2021 Bengal Assembly elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP led in 97 Assembly constituencies, while it secured over 40 percent vote share in 143 seats.

“The party is just four to five percent away from forming the government. The BJP is set to form the government in Bengal in 2026,” said Shah to a thunderous applause at the workers’ meeting, where he also told Hindu refugees from Bangladesh to apply for Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act without any fear.

Fight for Bengal

• The TMC has won the previous three Assembly elections in Bengal, bagging 213 of 292 seats in 2021, while the BJP got 77.
• Between 2014 and 2019, the BJP rose in Bengal from two Lok Sabha MPs to 18 (out of 42) with vote share rising from 17% to 40.2%.
• However, in 2024, the TMC crushed the BJP’s target of 35 LS seats by bagging 29 seats, while saffron candidates could only secure victory in 12 segments.