Malda: BJP party Chief Amit Shah Tuesday kicked off BJP's campaign in West Bengal where he hit out at Mamata Banerjee-led opposition rally and said “Bharat mata ki jai was not uttered even once at Kolkata rally of opposition parties”. While taking a jibe, he said the anti-BJP parties did not utter 'Bharat Mata ki jai or 'Vande Mataram' even once during the public meeting, but kept chanting 'Modi’.


Shah alleged that the 'mahagathbandhan' of opposition parties was meant for "gaining power and serving personal interests". "Mahagathbandhan is all about greed and lust. They want to remove Modi, while we want to remove poverty and corruption," he said.

Speaking at a rally in Malda, Shah took on the ruling Trinamool Congress and said the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be for restoring democracy in the state."I want to assure that all the Bengali refugees will be given citizenship under the Citizenship Bill. The TMC government has done nothing for the refugees but we will give them citizenship," he said.

He further added “all Bengali refugees will be granted citizenship with the passage of the Citizenship Bill.” Describing the Trinamool Congress dispensation as a "government that facilitates murders", he said the party will be ousted in the general elections.

Malda, a border district in north Bengal, was a Congress stronghold for decades with its politics being dominated by party veteran A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury and his family. However, ruling Trinamool Congress have built a strong presence there after regime change in the state in 2011.