The Trinamul Congress on Sunday said Amit Shah must have known how badly placed the BJP was nationally for him to set the audacious target of 35 Lok Sabha seats for his party in Bengal.

In response to the Union home minister’s public meeting at Suri in Birbhum district on Friday, Trinamul held a rally at the same venue, the Benimadhab school ground.

• State irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick said at the Sunday rally that Shah’s 35-seat pipedream exposed the BJP’s desperation to get past the majority mark in Parliament in 2024.

“Amid the heat wave in Bengal, we noticed Amit Shah was daydreaming of winning 35 seats from Bengal. He apparently asserted that Narendra Modi would remain Prime Minister if the BJP wins 35 seats in Bengal next year,” said Bhowmick.

“His target raises doubts on whether Modi would remain Prime Minister. Shah is aware that winning such a number of seats from Bengal is impossible for the BJP,” said Bhowmik. “Setting such targets for a state like Bengal is indicative of his awareness of the unlikelihood of doing well elsewhere.”

On Friday afternoon, Shah had set the 35-seat target and predicted the implosion of the Mamata Banerjee government before “25”.

“In 24, give us 35 seats. I am telling you, there will be no need for 25. Even before 25, Mamatadi’s government will become ka-da-da-da bhooss (an onomatopoeic expression implying collapse or implosion),” he had said.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP won 77 of 294 seats. The BJP now has 70 MLAs left in the Assembly, while Trinamul effectively has 221. The majority mark needed to form the government in the state is 148.

Sunday’s counter-rally was to mitigate Shah’s challenge to the ruling dispensation.

Senior minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim sought to explain why Shah set that target.

“They would be zero in Delhi, their seats would be reduced in Odisha, Akhilesh (Yadav) is there to corner them in Uttar Pradesh, In a very short time Karnataka would go out of their hands,” said Hakim. The states he mentioned have 136 Lok Sabha seats between them.

“Let’s not forget, he is the person who had claimed (in 2021) ‘ab ki baar, do-sau paar (this time, over 200 seats)’…. Now, claims of 35. Let me assure you, this time they will be finished (in Bengal),” he added.

Last month, Trinamul chief Mamata had questioned the BJP’s ability to win next year, dismissing the meticulously crafted and religiously protected perception of the invincibility of the saffron regime. She had tried to explain with the example of 11 states — accounting for 271 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats — where the BJP is not likely to fare well, according to her.

“The saffron ecosystem is trying to focus on Bengal and a few other Opposition-ruled states in an attempt to make up for heavy losses in their strongholds,” said a Trinamul MP.

Shah had also made it abundantly clear that his party remains unwilling to use anything other than the hackneyed weapon of polarisation, which failed it miserably here in 2021.

Repeatedly broaching subjects such as terror,militancy, cattle-rustling,infiltration, Pakistan, and Kashmir — some of the saffron ecosystem’s favourite tropes for otherisation andvilification of Muslims — Shah also brought up the under-construction Ram temple in Ayodhya, and tension around Ram Navami, to attack Mamata.

On Sunday, Trinamul countered Shah, asserting Bengal was a state that witnessed sporadic violence in two pockets, while over 1,300 Ram Navami processions were taken out in the state.

“Only a pocket each in Hooghly and Howrah witnessed some violence because of intimidation and provocation by people of his party and associate organisations of the RSS. I want to ask Shahwhy in other states, like (his home state of) Gujarat, Bihar, Odisha, Delhi and Maharashtra witnessed strife during Ram Navami celebrations. Here in Bengal, the administration of Mamata Banerjee ensured zero loss of lives,” said Hakim.