By the time Assembly elections are held in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be the only member left in the TMC, Union Home Minister Amit Shah asserted on Saturday as a battery of TMC leaders including the redoubtable Suvendu Adhikari joined the BJP.
Adhikari, the foremost TMC leader with a mass base after Mamata, shifted allegiance to the BJP, besides nine MLAs, including five of the ruling party, and a Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member in Shah's presence.
The TMC's slogan of "Maa, Mati, Manush" (mother, motherland and people) has been reduced to "extortion, corruption and nepotism", Shah said, and exuded confidence that the BJP will form the next government in the state winning over 200 seats. West Bengal has a 294-member Assembly.
"When the people of Bengal are rallying behind the BJP to transform the state why is she worried? This is just the beginning. These people are leaving your party voluntarily. The way leaders are deserting your party, by the time elections are held, Mamata Banerjee will be left alone in the TMC," Shah said, taking a swipe at Banerjee.
"The kind of Tsunami I see today, you would have never imagined," an elated Shah said as Adhikari nodded in approval.
Shah said leaders and workers of rival political parties were joining the BJP because of the TMC's "politics of appeasement and nepotism".
"Good people from the Congress, Trinamool, CPI(M)...all under the leadership of Suvendu Bhai, have joined the BJP today to work under the leadership of Narendra Modi Ji," he said.
Mocking Banerjee's allegation that the BJP was trying to engineer defections in her party, Shah wondered whether forming the TMC after quitting the Congress in 1998 was not defection.
"Senior party members are leaving the TMC. Mamata didi is accusing the BJP of engineering defections. We are not doing any such thing. But I want to ask her when she quit the Congress to form TMC, wasn't it defection? This is just the beginning. She will be left alone by the time election arrives," Shah said.
Lashing out at "dynasty politics" in the TMC, Shah alleged that Banerjee has changed its slogan from "Maa, Mati, Manush" to "appeasement, family fiefdom and tolabaazi (extortion)."
