Mamata Banerjee on Monday assured minority communities, especially Muslims, that the atrocities against them under the Narendra Modi government would end in six months or so as the 26-party coalition of INDIA would triumph over the BJP in the next general election.

“Remember, Prime Minister Modi is in power for just six more months... with them will go the barbaric atrocities. We will do all it takes to defeat him… vanquish them,” said the Trinamul Congress chief at an event with Muslim clerics in the Netaji Indoor Stadium here in the afternoon.

“I am their principal target here (in Bengal) because they want to split the votes to regain lost ground. This mistake must not be made…. BJP hatao, India bachao (oust the BJP, save India),” she added.

Referring to the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), the chief minister reaffirmed her commitment to the common cause nationally but rued the stiff resistance to her in Bengal from her alliance partners.

“At the national level, I am fully with INDIA…. Although here, the Congress and the CPM are shamelessly with the BJP against us,” she said.

The Bengal chief minister was evidently trying to use the platform to woo Muslims, who make up around 30 per cent of Bengal’s population. Their support plays a decisive role in any electoral sweep in the state. She blamed the hackneyed yet fearsome weapon of choice of the saffron ecosystem, that of deliberate riot-mongering to reap political dividends through polarisation by vilification and otherisation of Muslims.

Mamata urged the clerics at the event to ensure that none from the community succumbed to such provocation.

“Some among us tend to get agitated. I ask them to exercise caution, show restraint, as getting people outraged is very much part of their strategy,” said Mamata, who seemed ever-ready to deal with the provocateurs with an iron fist.

“They want to encourage chaos and spark tension through outrage so that others are coaxed with relative ease into falsely branding minorities as terrorists. They will incarcerate people, misusing the NIA under such cases. Nobody other than the BJP does these things,” she added.

“Those enemies of the people who take money from the BJP to drive wedges between the people should be held accountable.”

Mamata, who has for years tried to emerge as a messiah-esque figure for minorities, both as an administrator and a politician, underscored her role in leading the anti-citizenship tripod protests ahead of the pandemic and vowed to do the same against the proposed Uniform Civil Code.

“We are always the first to take up arms for the just causes and fight to the finish. We will not allow the Uniform Civil Code, just as we kept the (citizenship matrix) out,” she said.

Lashing out at the BJP for essentially being anti-minority, she assured the people of secular governance for as long as her party remained in power here.

“As long as I am alive and my party is here, we will be there for everyone, and work for all communities — Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis,” Mamata said.

“Faith has no business in politics,” she added.