Amit Shah in Bengal: TMC rebel Suvendu Adhikari inducted into BJP; Shah tells Mamata, 'You will be left alone'

Union Home Minister Amit Shah is on a two-day visit to West Bengal starting Saturday. On his first day in Bengal, Shah inducted Trinamool Congress rebel Suvendu Adhikari to the BJP at a mega rally in West Bengal's Midnapore district. Amit Shah welcomed Suvendu Adhikari to the BJP, sparing no shot at Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

"Why are so many people leaving Trinamool Congress? Because of the misrule, corruption and nepotism of Mamata Banerjee. Didi, this is just the beginning. By the time elections come, you will be left all alone," he said.

Suvendu Adhikari, was the face of the TMC supremo’s Nandigram movement. The political heavyweight ended his two-decade-old association with the party this week and thanked Mamata Banerjee for opportunities she gave him. Adhikari had resigned as a member of the Mamata Banerjee cabinet on November 27 and from several other posts on December 16.

Moments before he was formally inducted into the BJP, Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday wrote an open letter to his followers within the Trinamool Congress. "Neither West Bengal nor Trinamool Congress is anyone's fiefdom," Suvendu Adhikari wrote, in an apparent jibe at the Bengal Chief Minister's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, whose growing dominance in the TMC had irked Adhikari.

Suvendu Adhikari further said, "The party was not built in one day with the contribution of one person. It is therefore especially painful, that the individuals currently in charge of the party are treating it like their personal fiefdom. The very people on the backs of whom the party was created are now being sidelined, humiliated and outcast."

Speaking out against poll strategist Prashant Kishor, Suvendu said TMC has hired external agencies who have "no knowledge of ground realities".

Amit Shah earlier cited the examples of freedom fighters like Khudiram Bose and Ramprasad Bismil to tell rival parties in West Bengal that indulging in regionalism was 'shallow politics' and ought to be shunned.

Paying floral tributes to the revolutionary Khudiram Bose at his ancestral place in Medinipur, 150 kilometres from Kolkata, the Home Minister said the country's youth may not always get a chance to die for the nation like Bose, but they have a chance to live and follow the brave revolutionary's path.

The Home Minister, accompanied by Bengal BJP leader like Dilip Ghosh and the party's West Bengal in-charge, Kailash Vijayvargiya, then went on to have lunch at a farmer's house in Belijuri village in West Midnapore district.

Mr Shah arrived in Medinipur a little after noon by helicopter from Kolkata. He offered prayers at the Siddheswari Kali Temple and later at the Devi Mahamaya temple in the town.

The Home Minister began his day in the state capital offering prayers to Swami Vivekananda, Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, and Sarada Devi at the Ramakrishna Ashram around 10.30 am.