BJP militant outfit, divides people along religious lines, says Mamata

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday called the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a "militant organisation", engaged in dividing people along religious lines and dared it to attack her party, the Trinamool Congress.

Banerjee also alleged that the BJP is manipulating Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs to increase its vote share in the state and urged her party workers to prepare for the next Lok Sabha poll as the entire country is looking forward to it.

"We are not a militant organisation like the BJP. They are arrogant and intolerant. They are religiously biased. They don't like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs - they are even differentiating between the upper caste and the lower caste Hindus," she said at the extended core committee meeting of the Trinamool Congress.

Hitting out at the BJP, she said, "They are threatening to carry out encounters. Just because they are in power in Delhi, they are talking about hurling bombs. I dare them to come and touch us. We will show them their place."

West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh had said on Tuesday that the party would not tolerate if its workers were attacked by the Trinamool Congress and threatened to retaliate.

Banerjee accused the BJP, the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Maoists of joining hands against the Trinamool in Bengal and alleged that the BJP is manipulating EVMs to increase its vote share in the state.

"The work for the revision of electoral rolls has begun. Ensure that the procedures are followed. It is the BJP's habit to tamper EVMs. Our party workers must be alert and monitor them," she said.

Referring to the May assembly by-poll at Maheshtala, she said 30 per cent of the EVMs used then did not work properly. "This government (at the Centre) manipulates EVM machine. Every machine will have to be monitored," she said.

The Trinamool had registered a massive victory in Maheshtala by securing 1,04,818 votes, while the BJP's vote share had witnessed a massive rise to 42,053 votes.

Banerjee asked her party cadre and workers to increase mass contact ahead of the Lok Sabha poll due next year.

"You (TMC cadre and workers) should remember that people of this country are looking up to us. They want to know what we are doing," she said.

"You must reach out to the people. Or else there is no place for you in the party. The party will not tolerate those who are inactive," she added.