The Trinamul Congress has said Union home minister Amit Shah’s prediction of the Mamata Banerjee government’s fall before “25” showed that the BJP was engaging in back-door politics to ensure Trinamul’s downfall.

The official Twitter handle of Trinamul posted video statements from six spokespersons — ministers Shashi Panja, Partha Bhowmick, and Chandrima Bhattacharya; MPs Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, and Sushmita Dev; and state secretary Kunal Ghosh — who attacked Shah soon after his public meeting at Suri.

“You (Shah) are saying you will bring down the (state)government before 2025. What is the relation between the Lok Sabha and the Assembly polls? The Union home minister issuing such threats proves that the anti-Bengal conspiracy that is at play is being orchestrated by them (the BJP),” Ghosh said in his statement.

Bengal’s ruling party also said Shah should be ashamed of his inability to answer the five questions it had raised at a news conference on Thursday.

The questions were related to the freezing of central funds under schemes such as MGNREGA, Awas Yojana, and other issues.

“Amit Shah claims that BJP has a no-tolerance policy against corruption. But we have seen someone who is a publicly established corrupt individual sitting with him at Suri’s meeting today (Friday),” Bhowmick said taking a dig at BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari.

Adhikari, who had been a Trinamul member until 2020, was one of CBI’s FIR-named accused in the Narada case. He was seen sitting next to Shah at Friday’s rally and accompanied the Union minister in his car during the tour.

Adhikari was also used as a reference in Trinamul’s reply to Shah’s accusations that Mamata believes in familism and that her only target was to anoint her nephew Abhishek Banerjee as Bengal’s next chief minister. Trinamul “reminded” Shah of the “Adhikari Pvt. Ltd.” which is a mocking reference to Adhikari’s family where four members from two generations are into politics and have enjoyed several positions under the Trinamul regime.

Reacting to Shah’s allegations that Trinamul’s appeasement politics has led to clashes during Ram Navami rallies in Bengal, Ghosh and others pointed out that a BJP worker called SumitShaw has been arrested from Munger on charges of brandishing a gun during one such rally.

Visva-Bharati employees paste order on Pratichi gate

Visva-Bharati employees paste a three-page order on one of the pillars of the gate of Pratichi on Friday. Amarnath Dutta

Visva-Bharati employees on Friday pasted a three-page order on one of the pillars of the gate of Pratichi, which is the ancestral home of Amartya Sen.

The order informed the Nobel laureate that the ongoing legal process to evict him from a stretch of Pratichi land would be disposed of on April 19, without any further delay. Though the varsity had claimed that the order was pasted on the concrete part of the Pratichi gate because no one received it, many on the campus claimed the act was not only a humiliation for Sen but also to the family that had contributed to the institution for the time of Rabindranath Tagore.

Visva-Bharati in its order pasted on Pratichi gate repeatedly addressed Sen as an alleged unauthorised occupant.

Gitikantha Majumderr, who is taking care of Sen’s property in his absence, said he was upset as professor Sen has sought three month time till June when he will visit Santiniketan to face the legal process.

“Visva-Bharati is so inhuman that they even could not wait for that period,” said Majumder.