Dilip Ghosh hits out at TMC for politics of 'insiders and outsiders'

    Kolkata, Nov 21 (PTI) West Bengal BJP president Dilip
Ghosh on Saturday hit out at the ruling TMC for its politics
of "insiders and outsiders" and said it was creating suspicion
about the state in the mind of fellow countrymen.
    The TMC's "narrow politics" of asking people to resist
outsiders is creating problems for the Bengalis working in
other states, he claimed.
    Ghosh questioned whether the TMC would be able to
provide jobs and security for the lakhs of migrant Bengali
labourers if they are called outsiders in the states they work
in and are asked to return.
    "Has the TMC started thinking that this region has
become Paschim Bangladesh? Do we require visas to enter this
region?" he said punning on the state's name Paschim Bangla
(West Bengal).
    "By doing this kind of insiders and outsiders
politics, they (the TMC) are creating suspicion in the minds
of countrymen about West Bengal, like there was about Kashmir.
The TMC must rethink before saying such things. Or the 10
crore Bengali population will be insulted," Ghosh told
reporters at the party headquarters here.
    Stating that none in the other states where Bengali
migrant labourers work call them outsiders, the BJP leader
said, "But if it happens and they are asked to go back will
the TMC be able to provide jobs to all of them when they
return? Will it be able to provide them proper security?
"Where is the TMC stooping down while trying to do
politics? Bengalis were never such narrow-minded as this
earlier," he said.
    Continuing his tirade against the TMC, Ghosh said "Now
even the PM, the union home minister have become outsiders.
When the TMC leaders go to Jharkhand, Tripura, Assam or UP,
does anybody call them outsiders?"
    Without naming poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who
has been tasked by the TMC to work out strategies by the party
in view of the 2021 assembly election, he said that it is an
"outsider" who is working for it.
    "The TMC has urged people to restrict outsiders. But
people from outside are coming and formulating the party's
strategies as well as deciding on its leadership. We see that
TMC partymen are reluctant to hear from the outsider," he
added.
    The BJP leader cited the examples of TMC MPs like
K D Singh, Ahmed Hassan Imran and the Congress's Abhishek Manu
Singhvi who are not from the state but got elected in the
Rajya Sabha from it.
    "Ahmed Hassan Imran was the founder of SIMI and is
basically from Bangladesh. He came here from Assam and
suddenly became a person from Bengal," Ghosh claimed.
    The TMC, he said, was creating a division among the
deities too. "Sri Ram has now become an outsider, while
goddesses Kali and Durga are from Bengal. Those who are
performing the Chhath Puja are outsiders. In India there was
never this issue of outsider and insider".
    On TMC leaders criticising him for his comments that
if BJP comes to power in West Bengal it will strive to turn
the state into Gujarat, Ghosh said that the saffron party is
creating jobs and providing food for people of the entire
country.
    The BJP leader also hit out at the Left parties for
cautioning people about BJP-ruled Gujarat by saying that it
was a place of riots and asserted that most of the minorities
from West Bengal work there.
"I will definitely turn West Bengal into Gujarat if
the BJP wins. It is Gujarat which is providing food to the
people of the country. Over a lakh of people from West Bengal
are working there. There are no jobs here (West Bengal).
"The Left parties had failed to open their account in
the Lok Sabha elections. They made the workers of West Bengal
migrant labourers and have themselves vanished," he mocked.
    Ghosh said that Gujarat is economically better off
than West Bengal.
    Besides, Gujarat is in number one position in law and
order and security for women. "But in West Bengal, there is
lawlessness everywhere and women have zero security," Ghosh
said. PTI SCH KK
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)