NEW DELHI: After the TMC declared the names of candidates for 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal on Sunday, the state BJP co-in charge and chief of BJP IT department, Amit Malviya, launched a scathing attack on the list.
In a volley of posts on micro-blogging site X, Malviya said the Trinamool list is a damp squid.“Seven of the 42 (17%) names in the list were those discarded from BJP — Shatrughan Sinha (Asansole), Kirti Azad (Bardhman-Durgapur), Krishna Kalyani (Raiganj), Mukut Mani Adhikari (Ranaghat), Sujata Mondal (Bishnupur), Biswajit Das (Bagaon) and Biplab Mitra (Balurghat). Doesn’t the TMC have candidates of their own?” Malviya asked, adding, “Of the candidates, Shatrughan Sinha, Kirti Azad and Yusuf Pathan are bohiragotos (outsiders). Didn’t the party find enough sons of the soil?”
The BJP leader said that TMC candidate Abu Taher Khan had killed a six-year-old child. “Abu Taher Khan, whose SUV dragged and killed a six-year-old child, has been fielded from Murshidabad. Did the TMC have a dearth of criminals that Mamata Banerjee needed Taher on the list? And of course Mahua Moitra, who was expelled from Parliament for several violations and emerged as a face of impropriety,” he wrote.
He also mocked the TMC for fielding less number of Muslim candidates. “Desperate to shed the appeasement charge, TMC has fielded just six Muslim candidates, compared to seven last time,” said Malviya.