Kolkata

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday pledged the BJP will recover every penny the TMC has "stolen from the people of Bengal through corruption", and said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no taint of graft charge even after two decades in the ruler's seat.

Addressing an election rally in Rajganj in the north Bengal district of Jalpaiguri, he said that while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's exit from power was a "certainty", the task of initiating the process would begin from the state's northern regions.

"Modi ruled Gujarat for 12 years and is at the helm in the Centre for another 12; yet no corruption charge, involving even a penny, could be levelled against him.

"Vote the BJP to power in Bengal, and we will recover every cent that TMC leaders have stolen from people, along with interest, and return it to the poor," Shah said.

The Union home minister said that once the BJP is in power, it will act against Trinamool leaders who "gobbled up Rs 300 crore by orchestrating the teachers' recruitment scam" and the Rs 100 crore that was "stolen" from the flood relief funds sanctioned by the Centre for North Bengal.

"North Bengal is known for three Ts -- Tea, Timber and Tourism. But Mamata Banerjee has added a fourth T -- tears of BJP workers who have suffered immeasurably in the hands of TMC goons," Shah said.

"Search for and press the button next to lotus (BJP's poll symbol) on EVMs and the BJP will fulfil its task of searching for TMC goons and bringing them to justice," he added.

Addressing a public meeting at Falakata in Alipurduar district, Shah referred to the attack on Deepak Barman, the sitting MLA and BJP's candidate from the Falakata Assembly constituency, allegedly by a group of Trinamool Congress workers on Tuesday, a day ahead of the Union home minister's visit.

"I want to tell Mamata Banerjee that your goons cannot intimidate him (Barman), he is a BJP worker. I would want to assure him that after May 5 (a day after counting of votes), no one can lay even a finger on you.

"I advise TMC goons to stay at home on April 23, the day of polls, else after May 5 we will hang you upside down to make you straight," Shah said.

Advocating for an infiltrator-free North Bengal, the Union home minister said the Modi government, "which ended Naxalism in India and gave befitting replies to perpetrators of terrorism on the country's soil", will now detect infiltrators in Bengal and elsewhere to throw them out.

"On this very day, a BJP chief minister has taken oath in Bihar. We already have our government in Odisha. Elect the BJP in Bengal and the lotus (BJP's poll symbol) will bloom across the haloed trinity of Aang-Bang-Kaling. We will stop infiltrators from sneaking inside the country once and for all, as we have done in Assam and Tripura," he said.

While announcing a host of North Bengal-centric development schemes, which the BJP has also promised in its poll manifesto, Shah said the party will issue land titles to tea garden workers, making them plot owners, after forming a government in the state.

"We will increase tea workers' wages by Rs 500 within two years, reimburse their deducted Provident Fund money, set up modern model schools in tea estates and ensure that the one-time grant of Rs 3,000 for all tea employees sanctioned by the Modi government at the Centre reaches their bank accounts," he said.

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Launching a scathing attack against the TMC supremo, Shah said that while Modi considered all people his brothers, sisters and nephews, Mamata Banerjee cared only for one nephew, Abhishek Banerjee.

"All she wants is to make her nephew the CM of Bengal in future. But I want to tell her that her time has ended. She will be on the exit route once the elections in West Bengal end," he added.