Trinamul Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday asserted that he will do "everything possible" to remove the "corrupt" BJP government from power in Assam.
Addressing party workers for the first time in Assam, Banerjee set a target of winning 10 out of the total 14 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2024, which will leave Delhi "completely shaken".
He also asserted that the TMC will form governments in both Tripura and Meghalaya, where Assembly elections are due next year.
"We (TMC) will do everything possible to remove the corrupt BJP even if I am killed. We won't look back once we start the fight ... Wherever TMC has entered, it has fought till the last. We will fight to evict BJP in two years in the next LS polls ... I won't budge till we win in Assam and I am very adamant on this. I will reach every place whenever I am needed," Banerjee, who paid a visit to Kamakhya Temple earlier in the day, said.
Iterating that Assam should be controlled by its own people and not by leaders sitting in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, he told party workers "You will have to snatch your rights from Delhi" and slammed BJP, specially Union Home Minister Amit Shah for maintaining silence over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens during his two-day trip to Assam, while announcing plans to implement the same in West Bengal.
CAA is a "political tool" of BJP for attaining its "political goals" and Shah's double standard is exposed. "TMC's stand is clear from the first day. We oppose this draconian bill".
He said CAA is the only act which does not have a rule for the last two-and-half years and the BJP are taking extensions every six months, he added.
"It is not impossible to defeat BJP - Didi (TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee) did it in Bengal. We can do the same in Assam. Didi will visit Assam soon and we will prepare for the fight," he said adding he will form the district and block committees in Assam within the next few months and TMC will have committees in all booths by the end of this year.
He also challenged BJP on developmental works done in Assam during the last six years of its rule compared to that by TMC in 10 years in West Bengal.
Mocking at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commonly used term of "double engine government" to mean same party government at the state and the Centre, he said it meant "Double chors (thieves) - looting the states as well as Centre" and criticised the saffron party for price rise and use of agencies like the CBI and ED to scare opposition leaders.
"BJP is a fool. It thinks that it will scare us (TMC) like they did to the current Assam CM by using the CBI and ED. Congress can be scared, but TMC is not like this," he said.
He was apparently referring to the quizzing of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, earlier a minister in the Tarun Gogoi cabinet for his alleged role in Saradha chit fund scam.
Criticising Sarma for his controversial remark that the opposition acts as per his instructions, Banejee said "You try this with TMC. Your bosses in Delhi tried and failed. The more you try to scare us, the more we will fight back."
He blamed Congress for failing to prevent the rise of BJP and said the saffron party cannot be fought on social media platforms alone. "In Congress people are not allowed to fight the BJP. Only big speeches cannot be used to fight the BJP. The difference between TMC and Congress is that it (Congress) is being defeated by BJP in the last eight years and we are defeating BJP during the same time. Everyone of us came from the Congress, even Mamata didi".
Referring to the alleged attack on him in Tripura, Banerjee said that every TMC leader is ready to bow down at temples, mosques and churches but "not to a lumpen".
The TMC leader apologised to the media for the reported misbehaviour they faced from West Bengal police personnel who accomnpanied him.
At the ITA Machkhowa auditorium, where Banerjee addressed the party workers, the security personnel had reportedly misbehaved "rudely" with scribes in the name of checking identity cards leading to heated exchange of words.
