The BJP will scrap Article 370 of the Constitution which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir and introduce National Register for Citizens across the country if voted to power again, BJP chief Amit Shah said Thursday, raking up the two hugely disputed issues.
Amit Shah took on Banerjee, claiming that she and the Congress party were mourning the action taken on terrorist hotbeds by the Indian armed forces. "It's due to their vote bank politics that they did not support [Narendra] Modi government's action against Pakistan," he said.
"It is our commitment to bring in NRC across the country to chuck out each and every infiltrator. Unlike Mamata Banerjee, we don't treat infiltrators as our vote bank. For us national security is supreme. We would ensure that each and every Hindu and Buddhist refugee gets citizenship of this country," he said.
He alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal was only interested in appeasing minorities.
The BJP chief claimed that TMC stood for "Tushtikaran, (appeasement), mafia and chit funds. "Illegal migrants are like termites. They are eating our food grains that should go to the poor; they are taking away our jobs. The T of the TMC stands for 'Tushtikaran, M for mafia and C for chitfund (scams)," Shah said.
Seeking to reach out to tea garden workers, who constitute a sizeable section of the electorate, the BJP chief said his party's manifesto has promised to provide a pension of Rs 3,000 to them after the age of 60.
In Assam, where the BJP is in power, the government has twice transferred Rs 2,500 directly to their bank accounts, he said, claiming the TMC government in West Bengal neglected tea garden workers.
Shah said the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal were about "restoring democracy" in the TMC-ruled state.Claiming that the countdown to the "corrupt" TMC government's downfall will begin on May 23, the day the Lok Sabha election results are declared. Only Modi can save Bengal from the TMC and its "reign of terror", the BJP chief claimed.
