Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Trinamul Congress had a secret understanding with the Left Front and the Congress and urged voters to be aware of their match-fixing.

Modi raised the allegation at a public meeting in Haldia, his first rally in Bengal before the Assembly polls.

“You will have to fight against Trinamul, but also will have to be aware of their secret friends…. People of Bengal enjoy football and so I am using a term often used in the game to make you understand the match fixing among Trinamul and the Left and the Congress,” said Modi, who attended a government programme later and inaugurated four projects in oil, gas and infrastructure sectors in Haldia.

In an attempt to connect with the audience — BJP sources said more than two lakh people had turned up for the programme — he started his speech in Bengali and hailed the contribution of icons from Midnapore in the progress of the state and the country.

Although he spoke about local heroes and the BJP’s respect for them in detail, the focus of the Prime Minister’s speech was political as he went on to explain that Trinamul, Left and Congress leaders were having meetings behind closed-doors in Delhi and added that their fight in Bengal was a fake one.

“In Kerala, the Left and the Congress have a deal, wherein they allow each other to carry out loot for five years…. If you vote for them, remember that you’ll be falling for the trap they have laid,” said Modi in his 53-minute address that was clearly aimed at spinning the campaign narrative for the BJP.

For the BJP, which got over 40 per cent votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, consolidation of the anti-Trinamul votes is a necessary condition to fulfil its objective of wresting the seat of power in Bengal.

A poll strategist in the BJP said the mention of the secret understanding among the anti-BJP forces had become a need of the hour in view of the changing political landscape in the state because of the induction of several Trinamul leaders into the saffron camp.

“A large section of people who had voted for us in the Lok Sabha polls were anti-Trinamul voters, especially from the Left… Now, with so many Trinamul leaders coming to our side, some of these votes may go back to the Left. We have to prevent that split in anti-Trinamul votes and that’s why the PM referred to their secret understanding,” he said.

Aware that there were questions on why Trinamul turncoats were getting inducted into the BJP, Modi also created a narrative for state Bengal leaders. “A lot of people in Trinamul are fed up with the Bua-Bhatija-bad (regime of the aunt and nephew, meaning Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee) and coming to us… They are welcome because they want to work for the poor people of Bengal and ensure the progress of the state,” he said.

Modi narrated Bengal’s political history since Independence and tried to explain how the Congress, then the Left and finally Trinamul were responsible for the state remaining “laggard”.

“People voted Didi with the hope of a change, but what Bengal got was not change, but a reincarnation of the Left along with interest,” said Modi, who repeatedly stressed that Bengal couldn’t develop because of the “nature of politics” pursued by the three forces that ruled Bengal.

“When people grab property under government patronage, when killings take place openly on roads, when government vacancies are filled by party cadres, how would the ordinary youths get their livelihood?” asked Modi.

In his first appearance in campaign mode, the Prime Minister said a double engine — with BJP governments both in Delhi and Calcutta — would set the state again on the path of development.

“Only the BJP can bring the real change in Bengal,” said Modi as he tried to project the differences between the saffron party and the other political forces in Bengal.

In an attempt to sell the BJP’s development track record, Modi cited Tripura, where the party had come to power in 2018 unseating the Left Front.

“Look at your neighbour Tripura to understand what parivartan truly means,” Modi said.

The present state of Tripura has become a topic of discussion in the state after former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar asked people of Bengal to visit his state to see for themselves how the BJP had ruined the state.