KOLKATA: TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Friday launched a scathing reproval of the "right-wing forces" of the country, accusing them of "deliberately poisoning India's climate" through hate-mongering in the garb of religion.
Banerjee tagged an archived video clip of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, flanked by then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, making a speech on the need of the ruling dispensation to observe "raj dharma" without discriminating against people on the basis of their "birth, caste or creed."
Banerjee's comments coincided with the day the body of the migrant worker from West Bengal's Murshidabad district Juel Sheikh, lynched in Odisha's Sambalpur on Wednesday, was brought back to his native village for final rites.
Although the police in Odisha have said that the murder was not a targeted killing but a fallout of a personal dispute, a witness to the crime and a co-victim of the assault has alleged that the migrant workers from West Bengal were asked to prove their nationalities upon suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals.
"India's climate is being deliberately poisoned. Right-wing forces, emboldened by power, are openly attacking Dalits, STs and minorities - through fear, lynching, threats and hate, all under the garb of religion," Banerjee wrote on X.
When those in power are the perpetrators and reward the protectors of this violence, impunity becomes policy, he asserted.
"This is not governance; this is moral collapse. These attacks are unconstitutional, illegal and tear apart the very foundation of India -- our UNITY in DIVERSITY. Silence today is complicity. History will not forgive this," the TMC MP added in the post.
In the attached video clip of Vajpayee with the current Prime Minister and former Gujarat CM Modi seated next to him, the former PM sends out a message to the ruling party to observe the moral duty of the ruler.
"I am trying to observe raj dharma. The king and the ruler cannot differentiate between his subjects, either on the basis of their birth, or their caste or creed," the ex-PM was heard saying.
Banerjee has, in a sharply polarised political atmosphere of West Bengal, which is gearing up for its state polls scheduled be announced early next year, led the TMC's campaign against the BJP for allegedly targeting migrant workers from the state, who are Muslim and speak Bangla, by branding them "Bangladeshi infiltrators" across states ruled by the saffron party.